Page:Bird Haunts and Nature Memories - Thomas Coward (Warne, 1922).pdf/70

42 in summer to visitors from Cleethorpes, but in autumn cut off from all but business connection. The fine lighthouse, whose powerful "mantle" light throws a white beam every few seconds upon the Kilnsea houses, three miles distant, has its keepers, the signal station its watchers and workers. Ten cottages house the resident lifeboat crew and families, men who add to their retaining fees by crab-fishing. Two coastguards are stationed there, or were a few years ago; a publican provides for the needs of the thirsty, and a schoolmaster attends to the upbringing of the youth of the little colony, for the nearest school is at Easington, beyond Kilnsea. There is a post office and telegraph station, from which the wires run along the ridge; at intervals beneath these wires in autumn lie the bodies of many migratory birds; for in their incoming flight on dark or misty nights the deadly wires take frequent toll. Traders' carts follow no regular route on their journey to the Head; they must adapt themselves to the height and state of the tide. At low tide they travel across the "clays" or even on the firm seaward beach, but often they are driven on to rough pebbles, and at the end of the journey through deep-rutted, shifting sandy tracks amongst the dunes.

For many weeks in autumn the fields round Kilnsea, the ridge of Spurn, and the Humber clays are the feeding-ground and resting-place for an innumerable army of migratory birds. Southbound summer visitors converge upon the narrow neck, whilst others reach it by following the coast from further north; by far the greatest number come from oversea, landing from northern Europe at or a little north of Spurn, where they often halt, as at a hostelry, before continuing the journey. In early October the rough coast-fields were white with the seeding heads of sea-aster, and in September the show of this maritime Michaelmas daisy was a sight for the gods; on either side