U4 WILD LIFE ON A NORFOLK ESTUARY 

 A CHAPTER OF MISHAPS 



June 2Oth. Up for an hour or two on Breydon this fine 

 evening, on a gentle tide. The gulls are merrily supping off 

 " whitebait," which are flashing by myriads at the margin of 

 Breydon, and the birds have but to sit quietly on the water 

 and snap at the fry that sportively fling themselves out of 

 the water all round them. Even the shore-crabs are hurrying 

 into the shallows, driving up here and there a frightened 

 little swimmer, and seizing the victims right adroitly in their 

 pincer-claws. Huge jelly-fishes, turning their great discs this 

 way and that, and waving their many cilice as they go, are 

 floating upstream without aim or definite purpose ; many of 

 them will get stranded on the edge of the flats as the tide 

 falls, and be left there to be wonderingly looked at by the 

 gulls, who will perhaps tear long gelatinous strips out of them 

 to see whether they be tasty or not, while the crabs will 

 scuttle by, also wondering for whatever use such flabby things 

 can be. 



It is an evening for reverie and quiet meditation. But for 

 an occasional cry of some quarrelsome gull, or the mellow 

 calls of some restless ringed plover or redshank, silence would 

 reign, to be made the more profound perhaps by the deep 

 melancholy wail of a distant curlew. Two or three wherries 

 have passed slowly up-channel, with just sufficient breeze to 

 keep them ahead of the tide ; a curl of faint blue smoke 

 hovers over the head of yon wherry-man, whose huge sail 

 looms black against the western sky. The sun, glowing 

 redder as it nears the edge of the night cloud, grows larger 

 and larger, and dips dips perceptibly behind it, showing 

 a crimson streak here and there in the crevices of the cloud- 

 bank, and sinks altogether directly behind it, throwing up 

 streaks of golden light, as if bidding the world good night 

 with a last pleasant smile. Yellow, and pale green, and a 

 deeper hue succeed the glow of sunset, and the lately sun- 

 lighted fragments of cloud overhead turn to purple, grey, and 

 black. Night soon creeps on, and the full moon rises in the 

 east, to reflect in her quieter way the more effulgent beauties 

 of the king of day. 



It is time to turn the boat round and make for home. The 

 dew is falling, and the air becoming a little chilly ; but this 



