IN THE TIME OF FLOODS 59 



the air in spite of the continuous downpour, which 

 would have wetted the feathers of almost any other 

 land-birds after such long exposure. In their hunger 

 they flew, seeking food, long after dusk until it 

 was almost dark. But long before the rain ceased 

 numbers of them gave up the struggle, and crept 

 into houses, or were found clinging to walls, or lying 

 dead at the foot of buildings to which they had clung 

 when exhausted. 



The destruction among late-hatched broods of wild- 

 ducks was great. The loss among the young phea- 

 sants, mainly from the rains, but also from drowning 

 in the case of the wild birds, was most deplorable. 

 Four thousand young birds are said to have been 

 found dead upon one estate. 



Though swans, ducks, coots, and moorhens, which 

 build close to the water-level, and even the little 

 warblers whose nests are hung in the reeds a few feet 

 above it, do not themselves perish in sudden floods, 

 their eggs are destroyed by thousands. In the 

 summer of 1902, when numbers of these birds were 

 nesting on the banks of the little river Yar, which 

 flows through the reclaimed marshes of Brading 

 Haven, violent rains on the downs which form the 

 " backbone" of the Isle of Wight filled the little 

 river as suddenly as if it had been a mountain beck 

 instead of a slow south-country stream. Even the 

 swans, whose evident anxiety to raise their nests 

 usually gives warning of a coming flood, were taken 

 by surprise ; and when in the early morning their 

 keeper hurried down to the bank to help them, he 



