ICE 57 



abound. Past you may shoot the fastest of all commoner 

 fliers, the golden plover. The bits of hedge and bush 

 are thick with fieldfare and redwing ; and those who 

 carry a gun on such a walk will have some ado to refrain 

 from firing at strange seaside and water birds to make 

 sure what they are ; and the man who can distinguish 

 a high-flying stint (found on one such recent walk) has 

 good eyes indeed. 



The stream and the crackling sedge, the busy water 

 tinkling the fringe of ice, the quaint plates and icicles 

 suspended from overhanging bushes, the succession of 

 surprises from flushed birds, draw any naturalist to the 

 river. Yet, if he be also something of an athlete, the 

 Fen dyke may prove the more potent magnet. A new 

 mode of motion has its peculiar zest ; and these dykes, 

 running straight between steep banks, have become roads 

 indeed ; and the swinging rhythm, the strong stroke 

 from a true edge and easy glide, twelve feet and more to 

 each stride if you please, give an exhilaration beyond any 

 mechanical progress on air or land. When evening 

 comes, after a score or more of miles have slipped behind 

 you, without labour you may learn at last what a lowland 

 sunset may be. Even a still sea, where the pathway of 

 light runs from your feet to the homon, cannot rival 

 Lingay Fen when the red sun kindles its image in the 

 gleaming ice and the wisps and washes of colour decorate 

 both the Eastern and Western sky ; and the very mist 

 about the willows and low plain takes on the &quot; rainbow 

 tints &quot; of a pigeon s neck. It is to the plain, not to the 

 mountain, that this peculiar glory belongs. 



