THE COAST OF SOUTH WALES 15 



the roof, pranking about on it in their clean winter livery, 

 and then up again, and, after another waltz round, down 

 upon the bracken, perched on the thick vegetation like 

 minute fairy clowns. Then up again, blown upon by the 

 slightest puff of caprice, their little feather heads summon- 

 ing them for yet another burst of unstable energy. But 

 there was more in them than I thought, for one night, 

 they were performing in the usual way, when the fierce 

 little blue hawk, the merlin, swooped like a javelin 

 upon them, and with loud chirri chirris they rose in a 

 body, not, as I expected, in a panic, but a fury, and dis- 

 appeared from my astonished gaze at the heels of the 

 merlin, who took himself off as quickly as he came. They 

 were soon back again, wagging their tails in insolent 

 triumph behind them. 1 



Meadow and rock pipits (which are not a rare bird, as 

 commonly assumed) are also being constantly caught in 

 several minds as to where they shall go, rushing about 

 for minutes at a time before they make them up in a 

 flight which, owing to the short intervals between the 

 closing of the wings, is not one of curves like that of 

 chaffinches and wagtails, but acute angles, so that, in 

 flocks, they look like the diagrams of constellations in 

 the first page of The Times atlas. But, disorderly as 

 their movements are, they are driven by the exhilaration 

 of social contact, and seem, like those constellations, to 

 obey a complex planetary force of attractions and repulsions 

 whose mighty music we hear in the poets. 



In this stern land linnets abounded, tenderest of the 

 race of birds, and I would often stumble into the magic 

 circle of a linnet choir. Bounding through the air, they 

 would turn some wind-corner at right angles, and come 

 pelting down among the gorse in which I stood, and 

 burst into iridescent peals of fairy music, as though the 

 burning bushes were translating into song the secret of 

 their beauty and their fragrance. Or, in the evening, when 

 the spectral tide of mist was curtaining the ground, I 



1 Surely a remarkable illustration of the protective and 

 survival value of social life among animals. The merlin fre- 

 quently comes to the coast from the " interior " in the autumn 

 to prey upon small waders, pipits, wheatears, etc. 



