THE COAST OF SOUTH WALES 23 



the human form divine by getting out of its way as quickly 

 as they could. But the absence of game-preserves and 

 the kindlier sentiments of the neighbouring farmers were 

 not the only reasons for the approachableness of these 

 buzzards. Without his being exactly lazy or inert in 

 temper, the metabolism of the bird leans to the passive, 

 and he is lacking in the initiative and dashing, mettlesome 

 spirit of the peregrine and the merlin. In fact, I should 

 call him rather a meek bird. He is very conservative 

 and never in a hurry, remaining for hours at a time on 

 the same perch in the calm of lethargy, frequenting it 

 regularly and sticking to his own neighbourhood. But 

 the most remarkable thing about the buzzard, as indeed 

 about the kite, is a kind of dualism of appearance. On 

 the ground and in the lower ether he is quite without 

 distinction or nobility, dragging his body through the 

 air with heavy flaps of the wings and looking as dowdy 

 and sullen when perched on some eminence of rock with 

 all the drapery of moor, cliff and sea about him a 

 hunchback Richard III on the throne in his state room 

 as upon the turf walls and the tops of the cornstooks. 

 In the trailing flight close to the ground there is no grace, 

 poise nor rhythm : it is simply getting from one place 

 to another. 



But what a transformation when the bird has shaken 

 off the almost stupefying influence of the earth, and, like 

 a ship leaving the sluggish estuary of some river and 

 quivering to a responsive life in the wind and tide of 

 the open sea, climbs to a more buoyant atmosphere ! 

 Between stalking and flying the heron rises from a Daily 

 Telegraph prose to the epic, but the difference between 

 the buzzard's upper and lower flights is still more 

 sharply accentuated. The peregrine's flight (and I have 

 seen it at its best) is notable for speed, power, balance 

 and command ; but the buzzard's style is less dominating. 

 The bird gives itself to the air in majestic surrender, and 

 the languors of its earth-bound course are translated 

 into a solemnity of motion and stateliness of carriage 

 which seem to dignify the whole landscape. It (birds 

 are not neuters, but to say he or she who is two inches 

 larger than the male is an awkwardness) ascends the 



