376 Wild Life in a Southern County. 
The loam discolours the water during a storm for 
several yards out to sea, so to say; so that in a boat 
passing by you know by the hue of the waves when 
‘you are approaching the dangers of the cliffs. This 
continuous eating away of the earth proceeds so fast 
that an old hollow oak tree now stands—at what may 
be called the high tide of summer—so far from the 
strand that a boat may pass between. 
Like a wooden island the old oak rears itself up in 
the midst ; the waves break against it, and when there 
is but a ripple the sunlight glancing on the water 
is reflected back, and plays upon the rugged trunk, 
illuminating it with a moving design as the wavelets 
rollin. The water is so shallow at the edge that the 
shadows of the ridges of the waves follow each other 
over the sandy floor. They reflect the bright rays 
upon the tree-trunk, where they weave a beautiful lace- 
like pattern—beneath, their own shadows glide along 
the sand. That sand, too, is arranged by the ripple 
in slightly curved lines. These wave-marks, though so 
slight that with the hand you may level fifty at a 
sweep, have yet sometimes proved durable enough to 
tell the student after many centuries where water 
once has been. Under the foundations of some of 
the oldest churches—the monks loved to build near 
water—the wave-mark has been found on the original 
soil. 
In a hollow of the old oak starlings have made 
their nest and reared their young in safety for several 
