20 WOODLAND, MOOR, AND STREAM 



yellow, tallies with the hue of his barred breast. To 

 all intents and purposes he is invisible. There is a 

 quick movement, for he has just caught sight of what 

 he had lost for a time ; one rapid motion of the head 

 and neck, and the hawk is on the wing. A little 

 ' cheep ! ' and you see him fly past with a dead pipit 

 in his claws. We do not stay to fire at him now, for 

 the curlews are heard crying, a sure sign that the tide 

 has turned. The wind has changed, too, from east 

 to north-east, and blows against the tide, sending the 

 salt-drift driving over the flats, and making the eyes 

 run ; a blinding salt-drift is not pleasant anyway. 



Gaining the foot of the sea-wall, we crouch down 

 for shelter, and listen for the notes of the fowl, driven 

 by the fierce wind off the open sea to seek harbour in 

 the bays and creeks. The curlews are heard above 

 all the rest ; then comes the screaming of the red- 

 shanks, the cackle of gulls, and the cry of tern ; all 

 combined with the peculiar chatter of thousands of 

 dunlins or oxbirds. The fowl are coming up with the 

 wind, so, crawling up the bank, we peep very cautiously 

 out over the Saltings and down the creek. The whole 

 place is alive with hen and web-footed fowl ; about a 

 mile away a line of birds is to be seen coming over 

 from the opposite shore ; we get quickly back to the 

 bottom of the wall and wait for them. The whistle 



