212 WILD BIRDS 



THE MARVELLOUS REGIMENT 



Standing on the warren or the salt swamp, my 

 back to the sun and the sea, I am struck by the blue- 

 ness of the water at the estuary. A brighter tint 

 of blue could hardly be. It has none of the deepness 

 of a sea blue in June : it gives me the idea rather of 

 a very cold and shallow colour, but it is intensely 

 bright and glistening on a February day ; and 

 under a cloudless sky, the tint is the same for hours 

 together. 



Set here and there amid this sheet of unvarying 

 February blue are the long, perfectly even lines of 

 pale yellow reed stems. Here, too, the tint is 

 unvarying. These stems, tough and wiry, easily 

 outlast the winter ; were it not for the competition 

 by and by of the fresh stems, they might last even for 

 two or three winters. To yield to every whiff of 

 wind which sweeps over the estuary is the chief 

 secret of their staying power ; in Nature there is 

 the staying power that comes through bending, 

 not less than the staying power that comes through 

 the unbending quality. 



It is thought to be the same with men ; an 

 Elizabethan spoke of the first of the great Paulets 

 of Basing as holding his high office so long through 

 being not an oak, but a willow. 



The reed is finely fitted to the estuary life. Despite 

 its slender build, it is not broken nor are its 

 flowering and seed heads water-logged by the violent 

 winds at the mouths and bars of rivers. Close 



