THE CRUMBLES. 95 



the pools. We were lucky, too, in unearthing a young Lapwing, which 

 feigned injury, and two young Ringed Plover, whose mother went through 

 a performance that was new to both of us. She flew at a sloping bank 

 of shingle just beyond the nestlings, and clung on to it with wings spread 

 somewhat after the manner of a Woodpecker ; it was an original, and 

 certainly an effective, way of distracting our attention from the young birds. 

 But the bonne bouche was yet to come. Returning towards the marsh, 

 we espied a small Wader, which I supposed at first to be a Little Stint, 



THE CRUMBLE PONDS. 



a bird which is regularly to be found there in the autumn. It proved, 

 however, to be a Temminck, for we not only got a clear view of its colour, 

 but when it got up it uttered the unmistakable trill which is always 

 attributed to this bird in the books. Turning for a moment to the 

 smaller birds, Streeten and I once identified a Bluethroat in September, 

 and I have twice shot Blue-headed Wagtails from the flocks of the commoner 

 species ; but in dealing with the Warblers one is at a serious disadvantage, 

 for disadvantages the Crumbles have; firstly, in the matter of the walking, 

 which is over loose shingle ; secondly, in the multitude of blackberries on 

 the bushes. Blackberries mean blackberry-gatherers, and this, too, at the 

 time of the autumnal migration ; and believing, as I do, in the principle 

 of not bringing home anything larger than one can conveniently carry, I 



