A DORSET DIARY 151 



rookery, debating (with some heckling and dissension) 

 the pros and cons of repairing the dilapidations of their 

 homes. The motion was finally thrown out, or at least 

 referred to the Highways Sub-Committee, for presently 

 they came trooping out with nothing done. 



November 13th. In a small cup-shaped depression of 

 a large sloping grass field, fringed with a few reeds 

 and with a little water in it (rather like a dewpond 

 in the valley), I flushed a common snipe much to my 

 surprise, since, lonely as the country is, it is divided 

 up among small farms and highly cultivated. The 

 mottled bird zigzagged off so quickly that I could not 

 have told it was not our winter visitor the jacksnipe, 

 but for the fact that it sprang up with a strident, grating 

 cry. I used to hear the snipe " drumming " or " bleat- 

 ing " every evening in the spring further north in the 

 wilder country towards the Wiltshire border. A pair 

 had nested in a bog starred with asphodel and sundew, 

 and in the twilight the male's ghostly sport began, a 

 diffused and mysterious sound like the twittering of 

 Virgilian shades in Hades. 



November 16th. After watching half a dozen magpies 

 flying and settling leisurely about a patch of the valley 

 meadowland, I suddenly, while passing a thick hedge, 

 ran my eyes straight against a smaller edition of them. 

 It was a pied blackbird, a male with golden beak, black 

 body, and wings pure snow-white (i.e. blue-white in 

 shadow). He was a morsel cut out of the tropics, and 

 very brilliant among the uniform greys and browns 

 of his surroundings. I stood within a couple of feet 

 of this fine creature. As I neared home a pied wagtail 

 was disporting himself upon a thatched roof. How 

 exhilarating are his sudden spasms of uncontrollable 

 joy, when he leaps up into the air, or dashes with 

 lowered head along in a run like a trill, and ends by 

 frantically waving his tail ! He positively cannot con- 

 tain himself for the ecstasy of living, and I have often 

 seen him literally tumble off a roof in glee, and only 

 recover himself when near the ground. The ornith- 

 ologists call him Motacilla lugubris. 



The sun came shouldering out of a thick cloud as I 



