IN A BIRD-CLOUD 127 



hawk more particularly ; and, strange as this theory 

 may appear, it is, perhaps, somewhat in support of 

 it, that, a few mornings afterwards, I saw a kestrel, 

 first flying with a flock of peewits, and then with 

 one alone. I could not detect any fear of the hawk 

 in the peewits, and it is difficult to suppose know- 

 ing the kestrel's habits that he seriously meditated 

 an attack on one of them. In the same way or 

 what seemed to be the same way I have seen a 

 hooded crow flying with peewits, 1 and a wood- 

 pigeon with starlings : to the latter case I have 

 already alluded. The stone-curlew in the above 

 instance, though separated, for a time, by the hawk, 

 as I suppose, was one of a great flock, amounting, in 

 all, to nearly three hundred, which used to fly up 

 every morning over the moor, where I have often 

 waited to see them. Lying pressed amidst heather and 

 bracken, I once had the band fly right over me, at but 

 a few feet above the ground, so that, when I looked 

 up, I seemed to raise my head into a cloud of birds. 

 A charming and indescribable sensation it was, to be 

 thus suddenly surrounded by these free, fluttering 

 creatures. They were all about me and so near. 

 The delicate "whish, whish " of their wings was in my 

 ears, and in my spirit too. I seemed in flight myself, 

 and felt how free and how glorious bird life must be. 

 Almost as interesting is it to see the stone- 

 curlews fly back to their gathering-grounds, in the 

 very early mornings, after feeding over the country, 

 during the night. They come either singly or in 

 twos and threes grey, wavering shadows on the 

 first grey of the dawn. Sometimes there will be 

 1 " Bird Watching," p. 28. 



