170 MY LIFE AS A NATURALIST 



day not be far distant when our past relations may be renewed 

 to mutual advantage. 



Lowestoft and Yarmouth have both been visited, and, a little 

 further North, the whole of the Norfolk coast-line, from Cromer 

 to Kings Lynn, has engaged my wrapt attention. I have been 

 to the late Clement Scott's famous garden of sleep, on the edge 

 of the cliff at Overstrand, tramped over the wind-blown marshes 

 near Cley and Blakeney in pursuit of wild fowl and Sea Lavender, 

 and, as I have already told in an earlier chapter, I have 

 seen the Pink-footed Geese in large battalions at Wells, where 

 Frank Southgate, the artist, acted as my pilot in days long 

 since gone by. 



At Holkham I have watched the Merlin and the Ringed 

 Plover, and marvelled at the reclamation of the sea by one of 

 the most famous English agriculturists, Coke, Earl of Leicester, 

 and from Heacham I have driven to Royal Sandringham in the 

 dogcart of Robert Blatchford ! This was made possible through 

 the kindly offices of happy Harry Lowerison, whose book, " From 

 Palaeolith to Motor Car," shows one of his bents, and whose 

 School Museum at Heacham is worthy of a visit. 



I have hammered huge ammonites out of the red chalk 

 cliffs at Hunstanton, and been to the birthplace of Nelson 

 at Burnham Thorpe. Most of the villages and hamlets in this 

 charming district have been explored by me during a cycle tour, 

 and I have passed wet days near dear, smelly Kings Lynn and 

 historic Castle Rising, translating into Hhglish the whole of the 

 plant names in the British Flora. 



One day, when I was walking along the Hunstanton-Heacham 

 road, a fairly large bird, with long, red legs, came flying over the 

 hedge, and alighted in the middle of the road. As it did so, it 

 bobbed up and down as if on stilts, and strikingly reminded me of 

 some of the antics of the homely Robin. I could see, without the 

 aid of glasses, that this strange feathered visitor to the roadside 

 was the owner of long, red legs, and a fairly long beak. Its body 

 was about the same size as that of a Thrush, and it had a short 

 tail. When in flight, it displayed a good deal of white, and uttered 

 a shrill alarm-note, which is very characteristic of the seashore. 



That it was a wading bird there was no shadow of doubt, and 

 it did not take me long to establish its identity, for it was a Red- 

 shank (Fig. 73). Inquiry from a local bird-lover revealed the fact 

 that the Redshank very rarely alights in a road, and, to tell the 

 truth, I was responsible for it doing so ! Last Summer I was 



