MOORLAND IDYLLS. 



established their twittering colony. The soft 

 yellow sandstone that forms the cutting is 

 honeycombed with their tunnels ; and as I 

 leaned on my stick and looked, I saw the 

 busy brown birds gliding in and out, with 

 their long curved flight, and carrying back 

 mouthfuls of gnats and mayflies to their 

 fledgelings in the burrows. It was beautiful 

 to watch them swooping in great arcs over 

 the gorse and bracken, and then darting 

 straight, with unerring accuracy, to the mouth 

 of their tunnels. They alight at the very 

 door with all the skill of born pilots, never 

 missing or overshooting the mark by one 

 inch, but steering upon it so truly that they 

 look as though failure or miscalculation were 

 impossible. 



These two little episodes coming together 

 set me thinking; 'tis a bad habit one in- 

 dulges in when one walks too much alone 

 in the open. In towns one doesn't think, 

 because the shop-windows, and the horses, 

 and the noise, and the people, and the 

 168 



