268 A DAY ON A NORFOLK MERE 



with marsh marigolds. The lapwings sweep around 

 us, tumbling over and over in the air, and showing 

 by their near approach, as well as by their peculiar 

 cry, that some of their eggs have not found their 

 way to the breakfast or the dinner table, and that, 

 somewhere in the fast-growing grass, there are 

 lurking some of those dainty little birds which, 

 happily for themselves, are born with the full power 

 of locomotion, and sometimes, it is said, run off 

 the nest with a bit of the eggshell still clinging 

 to their backs. Up springs the snipe from his 

 marshy bed, and tells us, by his loud drumming 

 noise, which nobody, I believe, has ever been yet 

 able properly to explain, that he, too, early breeder 

 as he is, feels in a like predicament of parental 

 pride and responsibility. 



We now enter the willow beds, which are alive 

 with the slender forms and the harsh jarring notes 

 of the sedge and reed warblers who have arrived 

 too recently to have begun the work of the season. 

 We tap each tuft of rushes gently with our sticks, 

 and, presently, a bird sneaks out of a clump of 

 sedgy grass, a few yards ahead of us, in that mys- 

 terious way, which proclaims aloud that a nest and 

 eggs are left behind. It is a black-headed bunting's 

 nest, as five richly-streaked eggs of olive show. 



