BREYDON IN LEISURELY AUTUMN 175 



what to do, and after hovering a couple of feet above the 

 water, dropped as if shot, his beak, up to his eyes, going 

 below water ; then back he came to his perch with a 

 tiny herring it seemed to be in his mandibles. This he, 

 rather awkwardly, I thought, banged on the stump, no doubt 

 stunning it, " breaking its neck," I suppose he would have 

 termed it ; and without doubt he nipped it well at the same 

 time. With a funny little upturned twist of his head he 

 gobbled down his victim, helping it down with a little straining 

 effort ; he then shook his head, drew it into his shoulders, 

 and sat thinking again. A ringed plover dashed by, piping 

 him the "seal o' the day," without staying for a return of the 

 compliment. Master Kingfisher did not deign to notice the 

 courtesy, but simply turned his head to see who went by, and 

 then sat dumpy again. Once again he poised himself a-wing, 

 but only for a moment, and then threw himself on the 

 water, this time bringing up to his stump what looked like a 

 shrimp, or an Idotea^ one of those long-horned crustaceans 

 that zigzag about near the surface on sunny days. 



I only moved a hand, but Halcyon saw me, and with a 

 scream dashed away, dropping his prey. I saw it fall back 

 into the water. A sand-martin just now dipped in his flight 

 and snatched up an insect out of the salt tide. I wonder if 

 he notices how salt it is ? Some insects sit so lightly on the 

 water that they hardly wet their feet: the sand-martin, I 

 verily believe, can ship them up so neatly that the lower 

 mandible does not even touch the surface. On the fresh 

 waters I have seen these birds dip their bill readily enough, 

 for the concentric rings that " pay off" from the point of 

 contact are distinctly noticeable. 



Our summer birds are evidently leaving us, The adult 

 yellow wagtails are certainly gone ; the wagtails that loaf 

 about the weed-strewn walls are mostly pied of the year, 

 only a few late-hatched of the yellow species still remaining 

 with us. The buff-coloured young wheatears flick their tails 

 on clayey boulder, and on the marsh rails : one of them 

 hopped from our stick-box awhile ago, wherein he had been 

 studying the habits of the earwigs which hide there. Four 

 young kestrels are hovering about the walls all within sight 

 at one time seeking field-voles ; one or another stoops now 

 and again to snatch up a dung-beetle, which it scrunches up 



