AUGUST. 135 



bare bewildering wilderness of stubble, striped with 

 rows of piles of sheaves, remains. They may take 

 refuge in other fields, but the inexorable harvest 

 proceeds, until at last the revolution is complete, and 

 over his clean, wide acres the sportsman can count 

 his coveys in the open, and calculate the rather 

 meagre this year prospects of the shooting season. 



NOTING THE BIRDS. 



August 28. The changing winds of the fourth 

 week in August made the migration of birds most 

 interesting to watch on the North Norfolk coast. 

 No other place is so good for the purpose at this 

 season, because the general movement of the birds is 

 to the south and west, and the sea here, stretching to 

 north and east, makes a clear dividing line, on cross- 

 ing which the birds can be noted and like cabmen 

 at a London terminus have their numbers taken. 

 But it is before the regular oversea migration has set 

 in that one learns most about the travelling of birds, 

 just as the police at the railway station, who grow 

 bewildered with the traffic of the excursion season, 

 are able during quieter times to take notes of the 

 travellers and make shrewd guesses as to their haunts 

 and business. 



OVERSEA VISITORS. 



Later, when the bitter insistence of the north 

 wind will brook no reluctance of the birds to cross 

 the sea, they will come streaming into Norfolk from 

 Lincolnshire, as well as from Norway and Denmark, 



