Birds by Land and Sea 



nests. Rising in a mass, - they hovered above and 

 about us with a wild chorus of cries, now one, 

 now another, dashing down and past us, the owners, 

 probably, of the nests to which we were nearest at 

 the moment. One old lesser black-back was particu- 

 larly violent, swooping down with its menacing 

 "Ha-ha-ha-ha!" and when all but touching us, 

 rising again by the impetus acquired, and swooping 

 back from the opposite direction with alarming reck- 

 lessness and persistency. 



We had just made ready for photographing, when 

 we were surprised to see a large party of visitors 

 appear on the slope. This was, I learned, a Field 

 Naturalists' Club on tour, and for the sake of its 

 more respectable members, I will leave it unnamed. 



Whatever disturbance our presence might for a 

 time have caused among the nesting birds, we should, 

 at any rate, in the end have left them none the 

 worse off for our visit. But in the conception of 

 many of the members of this society, the function 

 of a Field Naturalists' Club seemed to be to commit 

 wholesale pillage upon natural objects in the field. 

 I had seen boys sneak about hedgerows in the egging 

 season, but they had, as a rule, the decency to assume 

 a powerful preoccupation in the botany of the spot 

 when so observed ; but I had never before seen 

 grown men invade a bird haunt like savages, rushing 

 from nest to nest with excited shouts beside them- 

 selves, in fact, with the wealth of plunder lying at 

 their feet. One fellow, more methodical in his 



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