112 A DAY BY THE SEA. 
will be able to understand how the old rook 
felt at sight of the soft, oozy mud-flats as they 
spread themselves before her. 
The peewit—off duty from home on the 
distant downs—was by no means pleased to 
see the two rooks volplane down close beside 
him. He knew rooks, was their neighbour 
in winter, and There, now! Who ever 
saw anything like that old bird’s impudence ? 
The peewit had unmudded a nasty, fat, 
watery-looking worm thing, and, before he 
could open a wing, in hopped old lady rook 
and snatched it away. 
The peewit went elsewhere, and the rooks 
waddled abroad, and the first person they 
encountered was a crab, heading sideways 
from a drying-up tide-pool to the open water. 
They stopped him, or tried to; but he 
showed fight, and marched on. Then the son 
pecked at him, and—nearly went mad, with 
friend crab firmly locked by one useful pincer 
to the tip of his beak. The war-dance 
he executed was edifying, before the crab 
dropped off, and, facing them with fists up— 
always facing them—slid, before they spotted 
his game, calmly backwards into the beauti- 
fully clear, deep water. 
After this for two hours they sedulously 
hunted sandhoppers among the glutinous sea- 
