66 
MATURE NOTES 
meadow below the garden wall, take flight ; for till the water 
plants are grown this part of the decoy is much exposed. Coots 
and moorhens, of course, abound, and scuttle off to cover when 
an enemy is in sight. The most interesting bird, at all events 
to me, that lives here is the green sandpiper. Some way out 
in the decoy lie the trunks and branches of fallen trees, just 
emerging from the water. On these five or six of these noisy 
birds spend the greater portion of the day for months in the 
year, and cry cake at the sight of man. They remain till the 
middle of May, then they disappear for a few weeks, and turn 
up again with the young birds. It would be a great find to 
light upon their nest, for whether they breed or not in Britain 
is by no means certain. Their movements a little later on will 
be noted day by day. The lesser redpoll breeds here in consider- 
able numbers, and is at home among the alders. Three kinds 
of woodpeckers are to be seen, but unfortunately I have left 
behind me at Easton and Riddlesworth their great black cousin, 
thirty miles off; though perhaps, if he prospers, he may take a 
fancy to our pine- woods here. There are many kingfishers : 
may their numbers never decrease. 
Of insects I can at present say but little. I suspect the 
presence of the Emperor butterfly, and hope to make his 
acquaintance by-and-by. It is also the sort of country where 
the Swallow-tail might turn up. From the abundance of their 
food plants the Elephant Hawk-moth and Sphinx galii ought to 
be found, and it may be my lot to come across that great rarity, 
Sphinx pinastri, which of late years has been taken at rest on the 
trunks of firs in some parts of East Anglia. 
Sometimes the water of the decoy is covered by a growth of 
a beautiful blood-red colour, the nature of which at present I 
do not know. 
But after all, the most interesting animal is man ; and when 
he comes across rare specimens of the genus Homo the naturalist 
is in duty bound to chronicle their occurrence. The farmer 
who occupies the land close to the decoy is a rare good sort, and 
delights my naturalistic heart. He does not look on all birds 
as his natural enemies. Rooks, owls and kestrels he considers 
friends ; most little birds he welcomes, but he draws the line at 
sparrows, and in this grain district, so do I. We have far too 
many. Rabbits are to him as vermin, and he entreats me to 
keep my rabbits down. He gives a penny to his men for every 
rat they kill. Stoats and weasels he encourages and dares his 
men to touch them. His ricks are being threshed. In one of 
them there were legions of rats, and forty-seven were killed by 
the men. Another close by was tenanted by a weasel : there 
was not a rat in it, but there were about thirty mice found 
freshly killed, “ all in a lump.” The weasel is alive to save 
another rick. 
The gamekeeper on this beat is almost unique. He does 
not look upon me as a cracky theorist, or say, as most keepers 
