3 o ADVENTURES AMONG BIRDS 



ment of the feathered nations were being held. Rooks 

 and crows, both black and hooded, and daws are often 

 there in hundreds ; lapwings too in hundreds, and 

 black-headed gulls and starlings and wintering larks, 

 with other small birds. The geese repose, the others 

 are mostly moving about in search of -worms and 

 grubs. The lapwings are quietest, inclined to repose 

 too ; but at intervals they all rise up and wheel 

 about for a minute or so, then drop to earth again. 



As I stand motionless leaning on a gate watching 

 them, having them, as seen through the glasses, no 

 more than twenty yards away, I note that for all 

 their quietude in the warm sleepy sunshine they are 

 wild geese still, that there are always two or three 

 to half a dozen who keep their heads up and their 

 eyes wide open for the general good, also that the 

 entire company is subject at intervals to little con- 

 tagious gusts and thrills of alarm. It may be some 

 loud unusual noise — a horse on the road suddenly 

 breaking into a thunderous gallop, or the " hoot- 

 hoot " of a motor-car ; then the enraged scream of a 

 gull or carrion-crow at strife with his neighbour ; 

 the sleepers wake and put up their heads, but in a 

 few moments they are reposing again. Then a great 

 heron that has been standing motionless like a grey 

 column for an hour starts up and passes swaying and 

 flapping over them, creating a fresh alarm, which 

 subsides as quickly as the first. By-and-by a fresh 

 flock of geese arrive, returning from some inland 

 feeding-ground, where the gunners have been after 



