BROA BLAND IN WINTER-TIME 
205 
our gaze by a metallic “ ping-ping ” from the reeds. The boat 
is allowed to drift while we watch within a short dozen yards 
a flock of bearded tits hunting the reed bed. As they hop from 
reed to reed these beautiful birds, with their blue-grey heads, 
their yellow beaks, their red-brown backs, and their long tails 
fairly hold us entranced. Look at that male bird with his 
orange bill and his grand black moustache ! He has evidently 
taken our measure, for he seems to know we are neither pot- 
hunters nor poachers, but true Selbornians. Skipping from one 
reed to another, peeping into the crevices between the sheaths 
and the stems, he examines each for an instant, and then by a 
couple of strokes of his wings alights on the next stem ; he 
looks up it and down it, and- is off again, always parallel to the 
water and working a few inches above it. All the while he is 
“ ping-pinging ” as much as to say, “ I am not the least afraid 
of j ou : I know I am protected by the County Council bye- 
laws : I am one of the rarities of the County, I am : I know 
you won’t hurt me, but — birrrrrr — don’t come any nearer, 
please.” Then beside him alights a blue tit, with his brilliant 
colours glistening in the sun. See how he sidles up the reed on 
which he has alighted from bottom to top until he seems to 
make it bend. We wait and listen to the bearded tits calling to 
one another in the reeds as they work through the beds, until 
their voices get fainter and fainter in the distance. It is so like 
fairy-land that we have forgotten our fingers till they are stiff 
with cold. We turn our boat’s head homewards and watch the 
blue smoke curling upwards from a dozen cottage chimneys 
belonging to a pretty little village which nestles beneath a belt 
of firs and alders on the margin of the Broad. The declining 
sun lights up the ruddy brick houses with their snow-covered 
roofs, while the columns of smoke bespeak the preparation of 
as many evening meals. Wistfully we leave this peaceful scene. 
A turn in the waterway shows us the moon is already far up 
in the heavens, only waiting for the departure of the sun to 
dominate the scene. In front of us we note the rapid flight of 
a snipe, while beside us the weird cry of a redshank causes us to 
stop and watch him as his red legs disappear in the shallow pool 
into which he has settled. The trumpeting of coots hidden 
away in reeds reminds us that we are near the spot at which 
we began our day’s voyage. The ice that impeded us in the 
morning has all gone from the dyke, so we moor our boat and 
walk leisurely to the station. Of course our train is late, but 
what of that ? How can we be happier than in watching from 
the station platform the final setting of the sun as it sinks like 
a ball of fire behind a bank of mist ? The soft calm twilight 
of this changeable day has its stillness only broken by the 
stridulent call of the partridges in the next field, and the love 
song of the thrush in the trees ; while across the sky the 
noiseless flitting of a barn-owl completes the picture of rural 
beauty. Charles B. Plowright, M.D. 
Charles T. M. Plowright. 
