THE HERRIXG-SPINK 35 



during the last four months of the year over the Dogger 

 myriads of larks, redwings, wood-pigeons, rooks, spar- 

 rows, starlings, swallows and swifts, house and sand 

 martins, bramblings, homely robins, jackdaws, and Kentish- 

 men going from and making for Old England; and they 

 will tell you, too, of kestrels caught and fed on herring- 

 gut, of wearied carrier-pigeons taken from the mast-heads 

 and carried into port, and of the scapings of snipe flying 

 high above the drifting luggers; but rarely do they catch 

 sight of the woodcock he is too shy. 



Then if the fleet be becalmed in an autumn fog, that makes 

 the vessels' lights loom ghostly and large through the damp 

 mists floating dreamily over the oily water, the birds get 

 bewildered and the fleet becomes a vast roosting-place, 

 and the young hands go bird-catching, capturing the air- 

 loving pigeons and hawks ; for the pigeon roosts with the 

 hawk, the silent, sleepy mavises with the larks, and even 

 kittiwakes side by side with the little herring-spinks, that 

 often feed like wrens in and out of the sheaves of blocks, 

 or amongst the nets, picking off the sea-lice, a food they 

 delight in. And the captives are taken below into the 

 cabin, that reeks of tobacco, bilge, and tar, and forthwith 

 the birds become sea-sick, throwing up their food amid the 

 hoarse laughter of the crew; nay, even the little herring- 

 spink turns sea-sick. But even birds get their sea-crops, 

 and recover and feed, if kept below, keeping their food down 

 with the best sailor of all the crew. 



And the next morning perhaps breaks fine and bright, 

 a chill autumn morning with a blue sky, and the birds leave 

 the ship and go noisily on their compassless way across the 

 watery wastes sailing with the wind abeam flying a yard 

 or so above the water. 



And perchance, if your ship be near the English shore at 

 this season, you may see the emigrants coming towards the 

 land in the early dawn, and then you know for all time the 

 real joy of the traveller as he sights the port ; for all these 



