BRITISH GAME-BIRDS. 183 



tips, all growing bright, fresh, and vigorous in 

 nature's wild moor, garden, or waste, call it which 

 you will, though it is surely far too beautiful to 

 have the name of waste applied to it. 



Now all is glistening in the sun for some dis- 

 tance ; a part is broken up by sandy patches, where 

 stunted birch - clumps, about the size of currant- 

 bushes, try to grow. Raised a little above these 

 patches are bits of the finest and shortest turf 

 that ever was nibbled by our pinwire dotters. " If 

 they're comin' at all, they'll be here now the sun's 

 up, to cut capers on one o' them 'ere bits o' fine 

 turf," says my friend. " Here they be ! " Yes, 

 there the grey hens were, round their black prince, 

 picking about just as if they had seen all his per- 

 formance before, and were not much impressed 

 by it at any rate not this morning. But the 

 splendid fellow went through it all : he bubbled 

 and crooned and wheezed or sniffed to perfection, 

 with his curved tail over his back, his wings trailed, 

 and his neck inflated and stretched out just as 

 if he must do it or die in the effort. Then spring- 

 ing up, he commenced a general walk round, 

 crooning and bubbling as before, his wattles look- 



