Wild Life on a Surrey Moor 



emotions. So on I go. Another hundred and fifty 

 yards of ground have been covered, when the curlew 

 rises in a great flutter, almost at my feet, and takes her 

 departure in silence. 



There is her spacious nest containing its full comple- 

 ment of four beautiful olive-green eggs, blotched and 

 spotted with dark brown in the county of Surrey and 

 within such easy reach of London town too ! 



Further investigation led to the discovery of two 

 more pairs of these silver-tongued birds breeding on the 

 moor, and the music they made reminded me of many a 

 fellside ramble in the north. 



The wary redshank is not an easy bird to watch to 

 its nest, which is generally well hidden in some thick tuft 

 of grass. Occasionally one is stumbled upon by accident, 

 when the bird goes off in a great flutter from beneath 

 the very feet of the wayfarer. 



Passing through a fringe of crow-haunted conifers 

 growing upon an ancient landslide that had thrust its 

 way into a long choked-up mere, I came out upon the 

 sourest flat of all the moor, from a vegetation point of 

 view. Here was unmistakable evidence of the hand of 

 the hardy squatter who centuries ago bent his body and 

 his will to the task of grinding an existence out of the 

 very face of niggardly old Dame Nature. What god- 

 like courage these forbears of ours showed when they 

 built their hovels in the wilderness and settled down to 

 a lifelong fight with poverty ! In every direction the 

 shallow deposit of peat had been cut out and taken 

 away, either for fuel or thatch, probably both. 



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