160 WILD LIFE ON A NORFOLK ESTUARY 



deepening into furnace-red as he sinks behind each ridge. 

 The only birds on the wing are a few late-flying, family-bored 

 sand-martins, and a restless gull or two ; while the only cries 

 heard at this moment are the laughing " yah-yahs" of a black- 

 headed gull, the " tweety-teet-teet " of a couple of common 

 sandpipers, the petulant " lou-eet" of a ringed plover, and the 

 calls of a flock of lapwings on the marsh behind. Some of 

 these "peweets" have used the mudflats to-day, a rather 

 unusual proceeding with them. 



I have just cleared away the teapot, the remnants of a loaf, 



CURLEWS AND DUNLINS 



and all that is left of a cream-cheese sent as a " tit-bit " by 

 Mrs. Banham, the marshman's kindly wife who, herself content 

 perhaps with the loneliness of life on the marshlands, half 

 pities the hermit who seeks even lonelier quarters from choice. 

 A lump of steam-coal is glowing in the cabin stove. 



What a delightful and characteristic cry of the oozy wilder- 

 ness is that of the curlew ! One yonder is probing and pick- 

 ing among the " grass " ; a small crab, a mudworm, an Idotea 

 linearis, or a shrimp in an adjoining puddle, all alike are 

 fish in his net. I saw one fellow this morning toying with 

 a flounder he had whipped up at the end of his sickle-bill. 

 It travelled no higher up it ; he twisted and turned it round 

 and round, flung it on the wrack, picked it up again, shook 



