. Birds, beasts and fishes of the Norfolk broadland . marshes, grinding with their heads set up straight, and tails hang-ing straight down ; for you will find as you approach, the shybird drops on to a lower bramble, and finally, as you draw nearer, disappears inthe stuff.\h> \ / Butyoumayoftener A\ W ^ _. I see the young birds, for though they cannotfly out of the stuff, anactive man can fallsuddenly upon themand catch them; yetit is a difficult feat,and an impossible featwhen they are fullyfledged, for then theyleave the stuff for theclumpy islets of sal-low, bramble, andsedge. But these
. Birds, beasts and fishes of the Norfolk broadland . marshes, grinding with their heads set up straight, and tails hang-ing straight down ; for you will find as you approach, the shybird drops on to a lower bramble, and finally, as you draw nearer, disappears inthe stuff.\h> \ / Butyoumayoftener A\ W ^ _. I see the young birds, for though they cannotfly out of the stuff, anactive man can fallsuddenly upon themand catch them; yetit is a difficult feat,and an impossible featwhen they are fullyfledged, for then theyleave the stuff for theclumpy islets of sal-low, bramble, andsedge. But these birdsare oftener seen thancaught, because theytoo have grown moreactive and knowing,and drop into the stufiflike stones, and arelost to view. After harvest is overthey are seldom tobe heard grinding,though at daybreakand throughout the summer they are to be heard daily. ButJuly is their nosiest month—July, when the marshes are gaywith ragged robin, blue oxytrip, meadow-sweet, cinquefoil,red docks, and yellow rattle. Then at daybreak, as the mists. YOUNG GRASSHOPPER-WARBLERS AND NEST. THE GRASSHOPPER-WARBLER 53 are clearing, you may hear the birds grinding amongsttheir coppice islets in that marshy sea, like some hugecicadas, for three, four, ten, or even twenty minutes by yourwatch, stopping merely to get breath, and going on till themists clear and the garish day exposes them to view, whenthey rest for a space, beginning again at ten in the morning, grinding through long spells with their heads thrown wellback and their eyes looking all around them over the greenmarshland, the songs rising quicker and sounding shrilleruntil the birds stop for a moment, the intervals being ofdifferent lengths, then continuing it for over an hour with afew momentary stops, the song recalling the winding of aspring steel-tape in different lengths, now stopping suddenlyfor a moment, now being pulled out quicker and quicker,then suddenly stopping. And so on at intervals the songs—those mysterio
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, booksubjectbirdsen, bookyear1895
