Peacock : The Beck — A Study. 



263 



stream for some distance, I never could detect their nesting- 

 place. If I went to the spot in the wood where I lost the bird, 

 I never obtained another view of it passing- over from my fresh 

 coig'ne of advantage, it mattered not how long I waited. 

 Mr. Cordeaux showed it to me on Aylesby Beck in June too, but 

 he completely failed to discover its eggs, even when employing 

 boys to climb the trees in the covers, to look into every likely 

 place and old nest. Crows, I do not mean rooks, build there. 



But while I have been keeping you so long telling of my 

 cuckoo studies,* had we been looking through the telescope 

 up the beck, we should have seen many visitors come to the 

 water and retire. First a pair of ring-doves flew down from 

 the neighbouring trees, having first taken a wide flight round 

 to see that all was safe. Then a hare and a common rat 

 followed suit, both lapping the water without wetting their feet, 

 though the long grass was still wet with the dew of the previous 

 night. Later on in the day, finches, sparrows, and members of 

 the blackbird tribe come for their bathe in the sunny shallows, 

 where they sport and flirt in fancied security. I was busy 

 watching their fluttering and preening operations one day, when 

 a slight wave, coming not too quickly up the glassy surface 

 of the water of the beck, at a short distance beyond the birds, 

 attracted my attention. I knew its meaning well from past 

 experience, and with my eye to the telescope awaited the result 

 with no little excitement. There was nothing above water to 

 give the least notice that danger was at hand, except that 

 trifling wave which soon passed, for the old hunter was wily and 

 cautious in the extreme as he drew nearer, stealing up inch by 

 inch, the birds continuing their toilet operations without heed, 

 till suddenly, with a mighty rush and splash, a pike sprang more 

 than half out of the water, and seized a fully grown thrush in its 

 relentless jaws. The doomed bird's companions flew away in 

 all directions, and the fish returned to his 'lair' or 'station' to 

 digest his afternoon meal at his leisure, leaving the beck for- 

 saken for the time by everything but the heron and a young 

 water-hen. 



land or their sites. It contains a rookery, and the usual complement of 

 Other species of birds. The wood is on the steep slope to the beck ; and 

 Barf is from Old Norse b/a/g, Danish bjerg and berg, and 'moans for the 

 most part a low ridge of hill.' 



* The portion of this paper referring to the cuckoo has been published 

 as a separate article. See Naturalist, April 1900, pp. 99-10S, and note, 

 p. 114. 



HBO September 1. 



