HOW I BECAME A NATURALIST 5 



looks just like a railway embankment very broad 

 at the bottom and narrow on the top, where there 

 is just room for one person to walk comfortably. 

 Well do I remember the time when the sea broke 

 over it like a waterfall. The men had some trouble 

 with their cattle then. 



I have watched the life on the marshes at all 

 hours of day and night ; in the early morning, when 

 the mist rolled over the lands and the scattered 

 poplars and stunted willows took strange shapes, 

 while the red hares flicked the wet off their hind feet 

 as they sat on the mole hillocks ; at midday, when 

 the gulls left the sea to come to the shallow marsh 

 pools to bathe and rest a pretty sight. Mixed 

 with them you would see the pewits and red-legged 

 sandpipers ; you would hear them too the cackle 

 of the gulls, the ' pewit-pewit ' of the green plover, 

 and the scream of the redshank. 



In the evening flight after flight of starlings made 

 their way over the flats to meet in one vast host, in 

 order to go through their drill before settling for the 

 night in the reeds. They rose up and sank down 

 again, turned and twisted as one bird ; sang their 

 evening hymn, with chatter and whistle, rush and 

 roar of wings ; while from the beach sounded the 

 wailing scream of the curlew. 



