42 BIRDS OF THE COUNTRYSIDE 



the scope of the natural historian, that his business is 

 with the universe, of man no less than of all other 

 animals, and that the fallings from grace and self- 

 respect of the one are no less his concern than the 

 destruction of the others. " Lilies that fester smell far 

 worse than weeds." 



Ill 



I have said elsewhere that birds in masses possess 

 a special artistic virtue, and the flats offer peculiar 

 advantages for so seeing them. A common sight were 

 clusters of herring gulls about a ploughing team a few 

 hundred yards inland — a shower of white bird-marguerites 

 resting on the dark furrows or bird-butterflies fluttering 

 in the very steam of the toiling horses. I say common, 

 because there can be few Englishmen who have not seen 

 it throughout the length and breadth of the land. It 

 is a sight intensely native and particular, and I can 

 imagine no memory one would sooner retain in exile 

 or even in death, no more satisfying symbol of the 

 genius of the race than the ploughman's team with its 

 escort of white birds. Yet, though common as a 

 rainbow, whose heart can but leap at beholding it, 

 whose mind but see in it a fount of mystery and legend ? 

 Flowers sprang from the sod wherever Aphrodite set 

 her feet, but not for her bloomed the spirit of wild 

 freedom as it blooms and scatters its petals in blessing 

 over the heads and in the tracks of straining horses 

 and simple labouring men, fulfilling the earth. Should 

 man ever find his senses and plough a straight furrow 

 into the future, may the white birds be strewed upon 

 his path, thoughts of his advancing mind and stars of 

 his true courses ! 



I remember one gull-day in particular. The commonest 

 species along the coast was the lesser blackback (though 

 the herring ran it close), and they were always 

 wandering on yellow legs over the grass and mud or 

 flying over one's head uttering at intervals their 

 gruff, hoarse owk owh, or hah hah, hke the muttering 

 of the wilderness. On this festival day there were 

 gathered some four hundred or so birds, resting on 



