Birds by Land and Sea 



extravagant motion a late revolt from the crowding, 

 sedentary life of the town. 



I was once bending down to examine the foot- 

 prints of birds in the mud beside a small reed-grown 

 streamlet, and, after having been hidden for some 

 time, was in the act of rising, when a large bird all 

 but alighted beside me, but gathering itself up again 

 in sudden fright, rent the air with such ear-splitting 

 outcry as to raise every feathered creature around. 

 It was a curlew. It did not make off at once, but 

 continued to wheel about at a safer distance for a 

 short time, repeating its harsh and, as it seemed, 

 objurgatory cry, so that I felt as if I were being 

 denounced before the whole body of Nature as that 

 traitor and renegade, man, and this wild thing of the 

 air were my accuser. Some of the smaller birds 

 appear to have retained a simple trust in man, which 

 one cherishes as one would the confidence of a child ; 

 but of the larger birds of strongly marked character 

 there is not one but fears the sight of man, a fear 

 which in the bolder sorts finds expression in cries of 

 unmistakable hatred. 



After crossing the first bay, a line of low sand 

 cliff, partly overgrown by thorns and brambles, is 

 reached. Where the small swing-gate admits to the 

 cliff-path above, a whitethroat had courted dis- 

 turbance by nesting in a bed of hedge parsley hard 

 by. This was mutually satisfactory ; for he was as 

 fond of grumbling as I was of hearing him do so. 

 As the fields, mostly under grass, come right up 

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