66 BIRD HAUNTS AND NATURE MEMORIES 



ward, on the fine headland at Beer. As it sent its 

 challenge over the waves below, the ragged feathers 

 stood out on its throat; it dipped its body and half opened 

 its wings when it called. Sometimes the pair circled 

 together, rising on splayed-out wing until mere specks 

 hi the sky; sometimes as they flew along the cliff face one 

 would sportively roll, shooting forward with feet and 

 breast uppermost. On the short grass, where bedstraw 

 abounds, the raven finds food in abundance, though in 

 small morsels. The powerful bill, which can tear tough 

 flesh, can daintily pick up the whorled Helix, or intercept 

 the sedate and globular bloody-nosed beetle. Both 

 species of this beetle were plentiful on the headland, and 

 when picked up justified their name by discharging from 

 the mouth a red fluid. 



Starlings work the Head for beetles and snails, but they 

 appear to be satisfied with the smaller molluscs ; it is the 

 thrushes which hammer the unfortunate aspersa on a 

 stone anvil until they have so shattered it that they can 

 extract the animal from the shell. 



Further west, on the long lagoon at Slap ton, South 

 Devon shows what it can do in the way of wild-fowl. 

 The fresh water is separated from the tide by a broad and 

 high pebble ridge where 



"... the full tide clambers and slips, mouthing and testing all, 

 Nipping the flanks of the water-gate, baying along the wall; 

 Turning the shingle, returning the shingle, changing the set of 

 the sand. . . ." 



But nothing but spume or spray enters the lagoon, and 

 the gulls splash and bathe in fresh water. Coots were 

 here, not in dozens or scores, but in hundreds; the western 

 end was black with coots. Wigeon swarmed on the water, 

 the crested drakes announced the fact in a beautiful 

 chorus of whistles. Moorhens made for the reeds, leaving 

 a trail behind as they flew, beating the water with running 



