156 LIFE AND SPORT IN HAMPSHIRE 



shine like satin, and one might get shot hues of 

 green and blue beside, for the gloss and the " inter- 

 ference colours " are a feature of the lapwing even 

 in winter dress. Suddenly the five hundred is off 

 the ground; but is suddenly down again a false 

 alarm. A little later they are really up and away, 

 for somebody is coming across the footpath at the 

 side of the field by Oakley Station. One lapwing 

 did not rise first, or two or three at the outside 

 nearest the intruding figure ; the whole five hundred 

 rose as soldiers regulars at the word of command. 

 I do not say that the five hundred showed quite 

 the simultaneity in coming down on to this field 

 that they did leaving it; sheets of twenty or fifty 

 birds at most, perhaps, came down at the same 

 moment, and even a few stragglers which had failed 

 to swing round in time when the flock made up its 

 mind to alight in the field, were nearly half a 

 minute late: one of these, as it came sweeping 

 round, gathered pace, and made as though to buffet 

 an unoffending rook feeding in the next field, but 

 swerved aside, and passed on, thinking better of 

 its first wanton impulse so like a bird's hostility ! 

 But though all did not settle in the same second, 

 none fell out of the flock in the course of the waver- 

 ing, fluctuating movements that led to a general 

 settling on this ploughed field. 



I have shot with my old friend, the master angler, 



