A VILLAGE IN HAMPSHIRE 193 



was a mass of crimson trefoil, tipped with delicate 

 pink. How can we be mad in such a world as this, 

 I thought. Beauty we fear and slay, because it lurks 

 somewhere within us all like a snake in the grass. 



A second day was a golden calm one in September 

 when the mid-summer trance was over and the sleep- 

 ing princess was once more bustling about her green 

 manor. Cole-tits were busy in the oak-copses as I 

 passed by them on the way to the station, but the ox- 

 eyes seem to prefer strutting along the top of the way- 

 side hedges in their new yellow waistcoats. I felt my 

 moult was safely through, and, carried in the train, 

 that I was migrating of my own volition. So I arrived 

 at Midhurst Common (which is just over the Sussex 

 border), and found myself in a trice staring at a small 

 pond on the south side of the railway (which cuts this 

 fine common in half). Upon it there was a pair of coot, 

 of water-hen, and of dabchicks, with a mute swan accom- 

 panied by a single, well-grown and handsome cygnet, 

 thrown in. I say thrown in because a swan on a small 

 pond looks like a duck in a puddle or John Bull on his 

 island in a cartoon, ridiculously disproportioned to his 

 background, and so ugly for all its whiteness. The 

 cygnet was the only young bird, and the bodyguard 

 of reeds and reed-mace with their swords and clubs 

 had been unable to save the eggs of the wild birds from 

 piracy. 



The pair of dabchicks took no direct notice of one 

 another, but from time to time sent joyous and 

 affectionate calls tripping over the water. Mr. Edmund 

 Selous describes the liquid, inflected call of the dab- 

 chick as a " hinny," and that's good, but too harsh. 

 My own version is a kind of silvery yodle, wild and of 

 the water, watery. It is like a single long spider's 

 thread hung with raindrops, each one pure and bright, 

 and is to the pond and river what the windy tremolo 

 of the wood-wren is to the beech-grove. In actual 

 sound, however, it comes nearest to the blue-tit's spring 

 song. In spite of this, I find it difficult to account 

 for the singular charm these shy little grebes had for 

 me. The coots with their shining white shields and 



13 



