THE COAST OF SOUTH WALES 19 



break through into visibihty, so the rays of the sun 

 balanced on the horizon's rim, throwing golden shafts 

 over the sea, and pouring into the blacks and pearls and 

 whites of this gull multitude, was the handiwork of a 

 supreme artist " whose smile kindles the universe." The 

 seaward sky was lit up with a salmon pink effulgence, 

 hazed with gold and arched over waters of the lightest 

 sea-green, the crests of the wavelets breaking on the 

 shore reflecting the ultramarine of the landward sky, 

 while the wet sand reflected the pink light, turning to a 

 delicate purple imder the shadow of the black headlands, 

 and the waters of the pools the lustre of the sun's disc. 

 Within this vast theatre of interchanging colours, the 

 sun's rays, broken into fragments like stained glass on 

 the surface of the sea, and radiant as the prismatic feathers 

 of a humming bird, tinged the white breasts of the gulls 

 into a roseate blush of a loveliness that was hardly of this 

 world. It was the further world of Prometheus Unbound, 

 and these gulls might well have been the Spirits of the 

 Hours, declaring with the heavens the glory of the Lord. 



II 



The Individual 



A solitary heron frequented one of the little rocky bays, 

 and the sight of his thin form, angular as the shadows 

 of the rocks, brought me a contrasting impression — ^that 

 of the wildness and apartness of the land on which I 

 moved, a stranger. I shall, therefore, continue this 

 chapter with an account of two birds less social than the 

 others, and expressing as few others do to the same extent, 

 the spirit of places untrammelled by human labour, abiding 

 through all human change and withdrawn from human 

 influence — ^the stonechat and the buzzard. 



The stonechat is a gaily painted little bird, and does 

 not shun the bright eye of day. His clothing is indeed 

 almost as rich as the siskin's or yellow-hammer's — head 

 and throat a velvety black bordered by a white collar, 

 back also black and marginated with chestnut, deep 

 brown wings with a white patch conspicuous in flight. 



