182 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



at once appreciated the difference. Nothing further noted. Left 

 at 7.30. 



September 10th. — Arrived some time between 5 and 6 p.m. 

 Thought at first there were no birds there, but at last located 

 them — a fair number — far off on the outer edge of the plateau. 

 They remained there till shortly after the arrival of a Heron, who 

 flew down near the middle of the space. They then began to 

 come up, several approaching very close to the Heron — to look at 

 him, it almost seemed — and I cannot help thinking, though 

 nothing occurred to demonstrate, that they were not indifferent 

 to his presence. The shades of evening were now falling, and 

 the birds began to disport themselves as before. The light 

 seemed more than usually bad for the glasses, so that I had soon 

 to lay them down, and I obtained, perhaps without their aid, a 

 better general impression. The birds ran about raising and 

 waving their wings, often leaping into the air, and often making 

 little flights, or rather Sittings, over the ground as part of 

 the disport, all as described before, uttering at intervals their 

 sad wailing cry. It must not be supposed that all the birds 

 acted thus at once. It was now one and now another, and the 

 eye never caught more than a few gleams (three or four or five) 

 of the flung-up wings at one time over the whole space. It was 

 a gleam here and a gleam there in the deepening shadows. 

 " Dreary gleams about the moorland " is indeed a line that 

 exactly describes the effect. This disporting ended in, and was 

 the recognized preliminary to, the bird's flying off. I counted 

 seventeen (but many had flown before I began to count) as they 

 flew one after another at short intervals over my head, uttering 

 their wild note. Though of the same character, this note, as 

 uttered on the ground, is not the same as when uttered flying. 

 On the ground it is much more drawn out, and a sort of long 

 wailing twitter* often precedes and leads up to the final wail. In 

 the air it comes as just a wail without this preliminary. 



These birds, then, stand or sit about during the afternoon (but 

 from what hour I do not yet know) in their chosen place of 

 assemblage, and if not occupied in catching insects or preening 



* This no doubt is the "clamour" mentioned by Mr. Aplin in 'The 

 Zoologist' for October, 1899 (p. 437). It is full of a wild sad beauty, and 

 effective beyond words. I too have only heard it uttered on the ground. 



