98 BIRDS OF THE COUNTRYSIDE 



a clear day, the birds within fifty yards of me, and 

 I knew them to be there ! In rest, they are indeed 

 as still as bird statues, standing with hunched shoulders 

 and necks drawn in, like bronze green flowers in a 

 windless land. This is plain evidence that " protec- 

 tive " colouring even in our land need not be and is 

 not always dull. A golden oriole in the chequered 

 sunlight of the trees would be protectively coloured. 



What a contrast is the lapwings' quietude with 

 their flight, the flight of a miniature heron with none 

 of the steadiness ! They are like large leaves casually 

 whirled about in the air, and they seem to delight 

 in showing off the blacks and whites of their wings 

 as irregularly and yet rhythmically as a dancer dis- 

 playing her limbs. In spite of their rounded wings, 

 thej'^ take the wind with more ease than gulls, the 

 reason possibly being because, like many other of 

 the CharadriidcE, they make use of body action in 

 the air. It may be this superiority that makes gulls 

 sometimes stoop at a lapwing flying among them. 

 They enjoy taking the air of a moonlight night, and 

 one November I was out in the fields at half-past 

 eleven listening to their ghostly cries and watching 

 their wavering flight round my head in a light itself 

 ghostly and wavering between dusk and dawn. 



In late summer and during the autumn herons 

 used punctually to fly over my house from the 

 Richmond heronry in the morning and back again 

 in the evening, and it is not until the winter that 

 one or two of them are to be seen stalking along the 

 river-bank. I have seen twelve, thirteen, sixteen and 

 nineteen herons, doubtless parent birds and young, 

 marching the air from my window. One heron, with 

 its Marlowesque flight, its unhurrying stateliness and 

 power, is sufficient to banish common thoughts. But 

 nineteen, thrown out into a wide, irregular mass 

 and cruising a stormy sky into the rich turmoil of 

 sunset — here is the grand style. 



Birds are good barometers, and it is curious to see 

 how the autumnal swelling of their numbers is affected 

 by weather conditions. The process is only cumulative 



