Wild Life on a Surrey Moor 



tops and streaking down their sides like whitewash, 

 testify to the popularity of these stumps as resting- 

 places and look-out stations over the wide expanse of 

 featureless heather around them. At the moment there 

 is a cock meadow pipit on the top of one of them un- 

 easily watching my movements and expressing alarm to 

 his mate, sitting on five dusky brown eggs under a 

 tussock not a hundred yards away. His soft trit, trit, 

 trit, tritting notes and rather woeful attitude, as seen 

 through my binoculars, would have given his secret 

 away readily enough, even if I had not already known 

 it. 



Away down to my right millions of snowy-white 

 cotton-grass blossoms sway gently in the wind. Their 

 long, slender stems enable them to nod their fluffy heads 

 to the lightest breath of air, consequently they are for 

 ever in motion. Beyond the stretch of bogland in 

 which they grow is a piece of ground rising a few feet 

 above the surrounding marsh. Such of the neighbouring 

 rustics as possess enough energy to ramble thus far 

 from the village in search of firewood or fresh air, by 

 courtesy call it " the island." Taking off my boots and 

 socks I wade through the bog and sit down on a decay- 

 ing tree-trunk to dry my feet and don my footgear 

 again. 



Ah ! there's a cock reed bunting swaying on one of a 

 handful of dead reed stems by the water's edge. He is 

 easily identified by his black bowler hat and wide white 

 collar, to say nothing of his three rather wearisomely 

 reiterated notes that sound exactly like don't-hit-me. 



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