A CITY OF BIRDS 75 



There were but few birds in the vale — small colonies 

 of linnets and whinchats and occasional commoner 

 species. How this wide land has fallen from its ancient 

 population, when the watcher, looking out over the 

 water into the cobalt blue of the horizon, where the 

 Mendips, mantled in softest lavender, lie like thickened 

 shapes of cloud, would see between him and them 

 thick and glorious squadrons of duck, spoonbill, bittern, 

 harrier, night, squacco, purple, buff-backed and common 

 heron, crane, grebe, swan, ibis, stork, osprey, stilt, godwit, 

 snipe, curlew, egret, and many another, clouding the 

 sky with their multitudes, shaking marsh and mere 

 with their cries, and now passed away for ever, leaving 

 him to fill some few of the empty spaces with falling 

 leaves, like flocks of finches sailing down from the trees 

 to feed. 



Back in the town I found a large party of yellow 

 wagtails assembled for migration in a meadow between 

 the High Street and the station. Yet it is an ornitho- 

 logical axiom that they never come about human 

 habitations. They were obliging enough to come within 

 five yards of where I stood watching them, to the 

 mild wonder of the good citizens of the town. Their 

 methods of feeding are very intriguing. Every now and 

 again one of them would cease from desultory picking 

 and grow stiff and point like a spaniel. Then he would 

 make an incredibly rapid, twinkling run for two or three 

 yards, and there was a small, dark object at the tip of 

 his bill. The grace and elasticity of the performance were 

 indescribable, and one could but sigh for those worthy 

 citizens who missed so fairy-like an entertainment at their 

 very doors. The other wagtails go through something of 

 the same action, but it is much less formal and detached. 



One day, walking on the grassy uplands, a quarter 

 of a mile from the town (where wheatears still lingered, 

 in spite of the season, and grows the pale lilac, six- 

 stamened, meadow saffron, leafless on its long slender 

 tube), I caught sight of seven thrush-like figures feeding 

 in the grass. They were taking long ungainly hops, 

 then standing stock still and driving the bill down upon 

 the ground in quick succession. It was effective enough 



