Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 4 (1900).djvu/302

274 ground (perhaps lower). I had just got back to the other side of the bank, and raised my head, as it were, into a cloud of birds. It was a charming and indescribable sensation, to be thus suddenly surrounded by these free fluttering creatures. They were all about me, and so near. The delicate "whish, whish" of their wings was in my ears, and in my spirit too. I seemed in flight myself, and felt how free and how glorious bird-life must be. They had taken me quite by surprise, coming up quite silently from the direction of the amphitheatre—upwards of one hundred at the very least, I should say; but so effectually does the heather conceal them that, now they are down with the rest, I can only count thirty through the glasses. After running a little in their characteristic way, as described, they for the most part stand and sit about in the sunny heather. I can now, though none have gone up since, only count eleven in the heather.

Another flock—this time a small one—now flies over me, and joins the rest. I am again taken by surprise, as I am lying on my face, examining the other birds, with my back (or rather my heels) turned towards where these come from. Can only tell that they fly from the same general direction as the first flight, and they also pass exactly over me at a similar height.

The birds, having now thoroughly settled down, I search the heather well with the glasses over a wide space, and out of all that great number can only make out twenty-six. The glasses discover a good many open pools and little canals of grass amongst the heather, but in none of these is a bird to be seen. They must therefore be right amongst the heather. Many of those I count are heads just protruding from it. Others are standing or sitting against the side of the tufts where it is rather thinner. A small naked patch or two may therefore be said to be occupied in this way, but where it gets more open there are no birds. I should think, indeed, that the birds generally sit close against the sides of the heather-clumps, and not right in the middle of them. Those that I can see seem to be so situated.

It must now be past eight, perhaps past nine, but there has been no flying backwards and forwards from one place to another, or circling about, as on yesterday. The birds have all remained where they went down, nor have any of those that were there