226 SEPTEMBER 



or has some quality in the season weakened the wasps, 

 as it has weakened the bees ? Who shall say ? Out of 

 these vain questions rises one plain obligation : &quot; Watch 

 the food store of the bees.&quot; 



6. 



Not even Hickling Broad, or Skokholm, or Scolt 

 Head, or Bempton Cliffs, which have each their special 

 supremacies, can rival Abbotsbury, which is in some 

 danger of being sacrificed to the need of an urban water 

 supply. It is, of course, compact of history. Was not 

 Queen Elisabeth, who was not easily cheated, particular 

 about her ownership in the swans, which have chiefly 

 made Abbotsbury famous ? Even the present keeper of 

 the birds may be said to hold an hereditary post ; and a 

 knowledge of most birds is part of his inheritance. The 

 buildings near by are as eloquent of history as Amesbury 

 itself; but it is when you have turned your back on 

 mortar and walked across the two flat grassfields that you 

 begin to understand the real antiquity of the habitation. 



Most people doubtless go to see the swans. The pay 

 ment of a small entrance fee, the presence of keepers, the 

 few small cages, the kept walks and formal (though rare) 

 flowers give some suggestion of a 200. The swans are 

 tamer than wild birds ; and in recent lean years, when 

 particular maladies have attacked the zostero grasses that 

 blush beneath the surface of the water, the birds are fed 

 by hand. You must travel to an Australian lagoon or 

 river and flush a few hundred pelican to see anything 

 comparable with the assemblage of swans ; and there, 

 even where ibis breed, is nothing quite like the succes 

 sion of immense nests. You may see swans on the nest 

 in a great many places ; in Worcester College gardens, 



