THE YORKSHIRE FEN 285 



Nature from sleep to active and eager life as in the 

 tropics, where the beginning and ending of light and 

 darkness are as rapid as the lighting and quenching 

 of a torch, and the hour of disappearance of the 

 creatures of night is fixed by the quick and tyrannous 

 invasion of the sun. The early visitor to the stream- 

 side will surprise the wild ducks and herons before they 

 leave their feeding-grounds for the day. In that part 

 of the " carrs " with which the writer is best acquainted, 

 the heronry lies in the centre of a thousand-acre wood, 

 from which the birds sally in all directions to hunt the 

 streams at night. In the early morning their grey and 

 ghostly forms may be seen, as they stand quietly in the 

 long meadow-grass, resting after their night's fishing, 

 or wading about in the long, wet herbage. Seen 

 among the white and curling vapours which lie upon 

 the dripping aftermath, they seem like the spirits of the 

 fen, as they slowly spread their wings and sail away 

 towards the sunrise to their sanctuary beyond the 

 stream. The departure of the herons is the signal for 

 a general awakening of the main bird-population of the 

 " carrs. " Though the sunbeams have scarcely pene- 

 trated the lower levels of the mist, the tree-tops in the 

 plantations are already glowing with the morning rays, 

 and the noise of the birds is astonishing. The tree- 

 tops are full of rooks and jackdaws, wood-pigeons and 

 stock-doves ; and like children, their first impulse on 

 awakening is to chatter. The rush and clatter of wings 

 as the flocks leave the wood for their feeding-grounds 

 is like the sound of the sea, and their numbers beyond 



