BIRDS IN NORMANDY. 
135 
then I saw a butterfly, but of what species I cannot tell, being, 
alas ! no entomologist. 
The causeway, leading to the Mount across the Greves, those 
treacherous sands which have proved the burial-place of so many, 
is about a mile in length, and flitting among the stones, which 
plentifully bestrew its sloping banks, I saw several wheatears. 
To our right flowed the Couesnon sluggishly among the sands 
in its channel marked by posts like exaggerated birch-brooms 
with very long handles fixed head upwards into the artificial 
stony banks between which, at low tide, the river runs. The 
tide was out then, and a broad sandbank in the middle of the 
river was occupied by a party of gulls, common and lesser black- 
backed, dabbling in the water and running to and fro by the tiny 
ripples. And the shore shooter was, unfortunately, not absent, 
for we passed a stout Frenchman with a cartridge belt buckled 
tightly over a black coat, carrying his “fusil,” the whole 
crowned by a black stove-pipe hat. He took no notice of the 
gulls, however, and his capacious game bag looked remarkably 
flabby, so we hoped that for that day at least the patron saint of 
Le Sport had proved unpropitious. 
Before us was the Mount, that mysterious rock, which once 
seen can never be forgotten, rising crowned with its “ diadem of 
towers ” sheer out of the shuddering Greves. The causeway 
ends in a blank, frowning wall, and we made our way on a sort 
of wooden landing-stage to the gate by which alone entrance can 
be gained to Mont St. Michel, and which must, I should think, 
in high tides be entirely under water. Our rooms were soon 
secured, charming ones in the Maison Rouge, Mme. Poulard 
Ainee’s ideal dependance. From my balcony I witnessed a magni- 
ficent sunset, and then after a delicious dinner we retired to rest. 
I woke very early next morning, and the door on to the balcony 
being wide open I lay and watched the dawn. There were 
delicious twitterings and cries of birds coming up from the sands 
below, which lay a sheet of cornflower blue beneath the primrose 
morning sky, and presently a heron lit within my range of vision 
and began fishing in the shallows of the Couesnon. I got my 
glasses and watched his every movement with delight, and in a 
moment another bird alit where I could see, and a splendid 
curlew stood revealed by my field glass. This was too exciting, 
and I hurried on my clothes and went out on to the balcony, 
from which I could see several parties of dainty seabirds bath- 
ing in the shallows and flying, with soft, musical calls and 
whistles, backwards and forwards along the waterside. I iden- 
tified common and lesser black-backed gulls, curlews, and oyster- 
catchers, and there w'ere numbers of smaller waders, which I 
could not see with certainty. The heron was still fishing, 
waiting for his breakfast in a calm and stately pose, varied by 
lightning but ungainly darts when his prey came within reach. 
I watched all these proceedings till breakfast time, during which 
meal I heard a chiffchaff in the plane trees on the terrace. 
