Page:Bird Haunts and Nature Memories - Thomas Coward (Warne, 1922).pdf/164

118 Each afternoon, when the light faded all too early, the starlings rose and took a bee-line across to the Scottish side. A geographical barrier, even a natural one so wide as the Solway estuary, was to them no obstacle; at mealtimes they were English, at night they roosted in Scotland; the two or three miles between were crossed in a few minutes.

This was in the early days of 1914; much has happened since then. The starlings, versatile birds, may, like the dandy, have changed their habits; the old horse, whatever war service it accomplished, must surely have passed; travel, speed, and manner of travel received many unexpected jolts in the years which have intervened. Port Carlisle ceased to function, the canal emptied, the dandy vanished, but the Solway remains practically unchanged; the tide sweeps over its miles of sands, fills the gutters of its marshes, and brings its hordes of fowls. Away to the north are those wine-red moors, the eternal hills, which the hand of Time seems unable to alter. What do we know of Time? What are our three score years and ten, what indeed the whole history of our race, compared with the ages which have passed since those hills were formed?