58 BIRDS AND MAN 



carried all over the surrounding country. So 

 great was the number of birds that the entire 

 population of swallows, house- and sand-martins, 

 and swifts, must have been gathered at that spot 

 from the villages, farms, and sand-banks for 

 several miles around. At the side of the pond I 

 was approaching there is a green strip about 

 a hundred and twenty or a hundred and thirty 

 yards in length and forty or fifty yards wide, and 

 over this ground from end to end the birds were 

 smoothly and swiftly gliding backwards and 

 forwards. The whole place seemed alive with 

 them. Hurrying to the spot I met with a little 

 adventure which it may not be inapt to relate. 

 Walking on through some scattered furze-bushes, 

 gazing intently ahead at the swallows, I almost 

 knocked my foot against a hen pheasant covering 

 her young chicks on the bare ground beside a 

 dwarf bush. Catching sight of her just in time I 

 started back; then, with my feet about a yard 

 from the bird, I stood and regarded her for some 

 time. Not the slightest movement did she make ; 

 she was like a bird carved out of some beautifully 

 variegated and highly polished stone, but her 

 bright round eyes had a wonderfully alert and 



