A SURREY RIVER. 123 



play, especially those river-side torments, the midges ; 

 their bite is irritating enough to cause one to shun 

 their vicinity. 



Rooks and jackdaws are passing overhead on their 

 way to the noble Gatton beech-woods ; besides these 

 we hear and see flocks of peewits, that nest all round 

 this part of the Mole. Food is abundant on these 

 long and wide meadows ; coarse tufts of rush and 

 other low tangle furnish plenty of cover for their slight 

 nest-making efforts. They are not shy, no one mo- 

 lests them. Plover-netting has not come into practice 

 here yet. Fifty or more could be caught at one pull 

 of the net, if the country people knew how to do it. 

 Some of us could put them up to it, but we do not 

 intend to. The plover is too good a friend to the 

 farmer for us to injure him, and he is also one of the 

 ornaments of the low meadows and ploughed lands. 

 This lot before us have young with them ; it is easy 

 to pick them out by their flight. A young rook and 

 a young peewit waver as they fly ; you will frequently 

 see both rooks and peewits feeding close together. 



Passing a bend of the river, we are arrested by the 

 sound of a chirp like that of the blackbird. Looking 

 round, we catch sight of a slouch hat, which we know 



