AUGUST. 137 



soft-billed wanderers vanish and the gardens are 

 empty of them, because the sea prevents the arrival 

 of others to take their places. 



A CROSS-MIGRATION. 



The numbers of martins and swallows on barn- 

 roof or telegraph-wire similarly wax and wane with 

 the changing winds, but larger birds are less afraid 

 of the narrow sea which separates Lincolnshire from 

 Norfolk, and on the 22nd the autumnal influx of 

 peewits, curlew, golden plover, rooks, and missel- 

 thrushes began in earnest. What made the arrival 

 of the first peewits on that day seem strange was 

 that, while they came from the north, small birds 

 were still assembling from the south. A glance at 

 the weathercock and then at the sky explained this 

 seeming contradiction, for while the arrow pointed 

 south-west, the high clouds were drifting slowly from 

 the north-west. Thus on different planes both the 

 large birds and the small were travelling to us with 

 the wind, although in opposite directions. 



ARRIVAL OF THE PEEWITS. 



On the next day the wind was set in the " nor'- 

 nor'-west," and many flocks of peewits arrived, with 

 more scattered companies of rooks, while irregular 

 detachments of missel-thrushes trailed inland, having 

 evidently " cut the corner " of the Wash. It was 

 very interesting to watch the arrival of the peewits. 

 One could see them approaching from the distance 

 like a cloud which spread wide to right and left as 



