THE ANGLER 153 



hills one evening in February, by the river Test. 

 The vespers of the song thrush suddenly ceased 

 when the church bells ceased, and by six o'clock 

 the effervescence of the chink-chink-chinking black- 

 birds was over. To human eyes it was not darker 

 than it had been five or ten minutes earlier, when 

 hundreds of thousands of blackbirds must have been 

 chinking and thrushes singing all over England ; yet 

 now the whole small- bird world was locked in sleep. 



I recall that evening so well, and my walk up 

 Bransbury lane by the stream. A change in the 

 growing night, too subtle for my sense, or some 

 unknown habit in the bird's life as to the duration 

 of the evening music and preparation for rest, had 

 brought a lull after almost an uproar. 



And now the peewits were gathering fast for their 

 night revel. I noticed them first, before the light 

 had quite gone, pirouetting over ploughed field and 

 fallow above the water meadows. They were still 

 there, later, when I could only catch a glimpse of 

 a bird where now and then a whig flung above the 

 skyline. Soon after, these peewits were drawn to 

 a large meadow on the other side of the valley, a 

 meadow with all the hatches in the stream down 

 brimming and soaking with clear water from the 

 chalk fountains of the glorious Test. Here, perhaps 

 from presence of food or promise of nesting quarters, 

 the peewits gather at night. Here, with voices of 

 plaint and pathos, they toss and fling, and wildly 



