WINTER DAYS ON BREYDON 15 



settle on the marsh behind us : they will come again to the 

 lettuce-like seeds, as soon as we are deemed far enough off 

 for safety. On the " low " in the rond the downy seed-tufts 

 are wheeling about like tiny ships in a whirlwind. They 

 have not fulfilled their mission, which was to take the seeds 

 with them, and drop them anywhere where the wind might 

 pitch them, or the waves fling them up. In autumn the 

 ronds and walls are gay with the bright purple Aster. 



We will go as far as "Stone Corner," a projecting point of 

 the walls which marks the end of the tide-worn rond. The 

 fog is becoming denser, and a short stroll must suffice to-day; 

 we do not expect to see many birds, for the flats are hidden, 

 and the few birds that may be haunting them are silent ; even 

 the gulls seem as gloomy as the atmosphere. There are some 

 lapwings calling on the marsh, but we do not see them ; they 

 are simply piping to keep their fellows in touch with them, 

 and comparing notes. 



A patch of white on the bit of water-worn rond attracts 

 attention, and our binoculars are at once levelled at it. It is 

 unmistakably a gull, to all appearances a large " grey," the 

 immature of the saddle-backed gull. On closer inspection we 

 can detect a rat at work upon it, and indeed a second one, 

 for they fall to sparring a pair of ghouls quarrelling over the 

 dead ! The death of that bird we may safely place to some 

 sportsman's (?) credit : it was not killed outright, but " fell 

 away " badly wounded, and dropped in the channel, to die 

 miserably, and be cast up by the tide and wind. On jumping 

 a narrow drain, we land on the rond and come up to the 

 carcase ; the rats, watching our movements, have bolted to 

 their burrows in the walls. The gull lies on its back, a bunch 

 of bones, with scattered feathers lying around it. More than 

 the two rats have been busy upon it, for it is quite fresh the 

 bones, picked bare, are still red. The sternum is enough clean- 

 picked for a specimen, while the vertebrae of the neck, and the 

 skull, are entirely divested of flesh, even the eye-sockets being 

 emptied. So well do the brutes clean up their dishes. 



The afternoon is waning, and the fog gives place to a nasty 

 drizzle : on our way back we are enabled to see across the 

 flats. And what a concourse of gulls do we discover : not- 

 withstanding the unpleasant atmosphere, we are tempted to 

 sit down on the stone wall having first spread an India- 



