262 THE LAND'S END 



the end of May will the bracken live again and 

 make the rough wilderness green, and not till July 

 will the dead-looking heath have its flush of purple 

 colour. Nevertheless, from autumn onwards the 

 sense of spring in the earth is never long absent. 

 It rains and rains ; sea-mists come up and blot out 

 the sight of all things, and the wind raves everlast- 

 ingly, and, finally, there may be a spell of frost or 

 a fall of snow ; but through it all, at very frequent 

 intervals, the subtle influence, the " ethereal mild- 

 ness,*' makes itself felt. It is as if the sweet season 

 had never really forsaken this end of all the land, 

 following the receding sun, but rather as if it had 

 retired with the adder and the mother bumble-bee 

 into some secret hiding-place to sleep a little while 

 and wake as often as the rain ceased and the wind 

 grew still to steal forth and give a mysterious gladness 

 to the air. It is felt even more by the wild creatures 

 than by man, and I think that John Cocking is one of 

 the first to show it, for by mid-January he has got 

 himself a curly crest and a new spirit. 



John Cocking is the local name of the shag, the 

 commonest species of cormorant on this coast, a big, 

 heavy, ungainly-looking creature, the ugliest fowl in 

 Britain, half bird and half reptile in appearance on 

 the water, where he spends half his time greedily 

 devouring fish and the other half sitting on the rocks 

 digesting his food and airing his wings. It is hard to 

 imagine any softening or beautifying change in such 

 a being, and indeed the only alteration to be observed 

 in him at first is that he begins to pay some attention 



