BEAUTIFUL DISPLAY. 215 



tion, what must be the state of grounds which 

 are carefully protected from such gleaning, on 

 which no bird is allowed to forage ? 



As noon approached, the hour when " birds 

 their wise siesta take," although the plow did 

 not cease its monotonous round, the birds retired 

 in a body to the still untouched middle of the 

 field, and settled themselves for their "noon- 

 ing," dusting themselves their snowy plumes ! 

 like hens on an ash heap, sitting about in 

 knots like parties of ducks, preening and shak- 

 ing themselves out, or going at once to sleep, ac- 

 cording to their several tastes. Half an hour's 

 rest sufficed for the more active spirits, and 

 then they treated us, their patient observers, to 

 an aerial exhibition. A large number, perhaps 

 three quarters of the flock, rose in a body and 

 began a spiral flight. Higher and higher they 

 went, in wider and wider circles, till, against 

 the white clouds, they looked like a swarm of 

 midges, and against the blue the eye could not 

 distinguish them. Then from out of the sky 

 dropped one after another, leaving the soaring 

 flock looking wonderfully ethereal and gauzy in 

 the clear air, with the sun above him, almost 

 like a spirit bird gliding motionless through the 

 ether till he alighted at last quietly beside his fel- 

 lows on the ground. In another half hour they 

 were all behind the plow again, hard at work. 



