THE WATER-BIRDS. 



With mingled sound of horns and bells, 

 A far-heard clang, the Wild Geese fly, 



Storm sent from Arctic moors and fells, 

 Like a great arrow through the sky. — Whittiek. 



When you think of the Water-birds, you say, perhaps, 

 that they are uninteresting, have no song, and inhabit 

 marshy and desolate places ; the Gulls are picturesque, to be 

 sure, but as for the others, Snipe, Rail, and Ducks, they are 

 only Game-birds and so much food, of a variety that does 

 not particularly suit your palate. This is because you have 

 regarded them as mere merchandise, and have never seen 

 or considered them as living birds, winging their way over 

 the lonely marshes and wind-swept beaches, clad in feathers 

 that blend in their hues the sky, the water, the mottled 

 sands of the shore, the bronzed splendour of the seaweeds, 

 and the opalescence that lines the sea-shell. Though in a 

 sense they are songless, their call notes are keyed in harmony 

 with the winds that they combat, and the creaking reeds that 

 hide their nests, and their signalling cries rise as distinctly 

 above the more melodious sounds of Nature as the whistle 

 of the distant buoy sounding above the surf. 



The very remoteness of the Water-birds gives them a 

 charm for certain natures. They do not build in the garden 

 and come about your door craving attention ; you must not 

 only go half-way to meet them, but all the way, and that 

 too right cautiously. There is an invigorating spice of 

 adventure when the bird-quest tends shoreward, whether 

 it is the banks of a river or lake that furnishes shelter and 

 sustenance alike to the nesting bird and the restless migrant ; 

 or the shore of the sea with its possibilities and changing 

 moods, — the sea that stretches infinitely on, ribbed by light- 



21 



