THE YORKSHIRE FEN 287 



kinds unite in these bathing- parties. On one occasion 

 the writer saw a flock which must have numbered at 

 least a thousand rooks and jackdaws approaching the 

 water in this manner. With them were scores of wood- 

 pigeons, a flock of turtle-doves, and a number of 

 peewits, all of which flew or alighted at the same time 

 in the same direction. The stream was flowing rapidly 

 and smoothly between high embankments, and it was 

 only here and there that the cattle, or some careless 

 weed-cutter, had trampled down the edges sufficiently 

 to make the access to the water easy for the birds. All 

 these " bathing ghats," as we could see by looking up 

 the straight cut from behind the decayed stump of the 

 last great tree that stood upon the marsh before the 

 forest disappeared, were occupied by crowds of rooks 

 and pigeons drinking and bathing, until others came 

 down and pushed them forward till they were obliged 

 to fly across the stream. There they sat in long rows 

 on the rails which run by the side of the dyke, drying 

 themselves or preening their feathers, until the whole 

 row of fencing was covered with black lines of cawing 

 and chattering birds. In no long time the water 

 brought down traces of the bath, in the shape of 

 hundreds of floating feathers, lightly cushioned on the 

 surface of the stream. Not even the floating thistle- 

 down lies more gracefully on the water, than do these 

 little fleets of feathers from the morning toilet of the 

 birds, the crisp and curling black plumes from the breast 

 of rook and jackdaw sailing by like fairy gondolas, while 

 here and there a feather from a pigeon's wing, with a 



