136 MY NATURE NOTEBOOK. 



according to the direction of the wind. Sometimes, 

 even, as last year, strong north-westerly winds will 

 bring birds that usually travel down the west coast 

 of Scotland and Ireland to our east coast instead, 

 and Bewick's swans may be seen striking inland for 

 the Fen Country, of which they have caught a wel- 

 come glimpse on their lofty coastwise flight. But 

 our proper wild swan on the east coast is the 

 whooper, and when you see these majestic birds 

 trailing their meteor-like flight over the level of the 

 salt marshes you may know that hard weather is 

 behind them. Leaving in desperation their ice- 

 gripped haunts, they have outflown the bitter wind ; 

 but it is coming after them, you may be sure. 



WANDERING WITH THE WIND. 



This will not be yet, however perhaps not at all 

 in the coming winter and meanwhile the summer 

 birds are wandering southwards by easy and erratic 

 stages, going in whatever direction the wind chances 

 to blow, but feeling no compulsion as yet to cross 

 the sea. Inland one can hardly observe this move- 

 ment, because the same wind which carries some 

 birds away brings others of the same kinds into their 

 places from elsewhere ; but on the North Norfolk 

 coast, to which the sea still presents too formidable 

 a barrier on north and east, you cannot help observing 

 how, when the wind blows from south and west, your 

 garden becomes thronged again with whitethroats 

 and willow warblers, chiff-chaffs and flycatchers, 

 which are stopped by the sea ; nor how, when 

 the wind shifts to north and east, all these little 



