130 LIFE AND SPORT IN HAMPSHIRE 



within sight of it. Now and then odd little sounds 

 warn the walker that he will be over his ankles in 

 another step or two if not careful These sounds, 

 sudden, rather startling, and only a few yards ahead, 

 are caused by the smart collapse in the miniature 

 banks of runlets that keep draining seaward as the 

 tide runs out. They exactly remind me of the sudden 

 splash of a large, scared trout that is disturbed 

 whilst shrimping hi a shallow ditch by the chalk 

 stream. Sounds and scenes like these never become 

 familiar. There is a touch of the eerie about them. 

 I imagine they affect even the hardened, weather- 

 worn folk who spend their lives about estuaries and 

 great mudflats and grim river bars ; the people of 

 the tarred shanties, good judges of such a thing as 

 a cockle, who boil the pot over a fire that spits and 

 crackles with scraps of wreckage. 



The wariness of wild life by the estuary and the 

 shore, as in the wood, owes very little to reason. 

 The wild creature soon learns to recognise its enemies, 

 and is alert to escape them; here understanding of 

 a simple kind is at work, but here it almost ends. 

 The precautions taken against the fully recognised 

 and dreaded enemy rarely involve the slightest effort 

 of mind. Take the flocks of mallard and teal that 

 float by the harbour bar from daylight till dusk, 

 or, when the tide is far out, doze on the spits of 

 dry sand. If they turned their experience to account 

 they would be completely safeguarded against the 



