The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1912-04-10
Birds of Britain.

| Picture to yourself water, jade greer
| and choppy, with the little waves thai
dance and run allwhither, and make
the stomach ache to watch; back OF
that mud, ooze, Shiny and unnice;
back of that nothing-nothing but the
dumb mist that hung like the cloak OF
a dour monk hiding all things; and
! over all a lean wind that ran about
master1ess, as of seeking eternally for
| something it was doomed never to
find. There you have the estuary in
winter.
1t seemed as if nothing lived in that
watery abomination of desolation ex-
cept one gray gull who floated and
floated like soul adrift in space for
aye. Then up out of the cold, CLASSY
broken glassy-water came a head,
and the head was in keeping with the
rest of the scene.
1t was black, and long beaked-beak
had a hook on the end, by the way
and had a white patch of bald skin
like parchment it was-on the face,
and the eyes of it were green and I'M
pleasant, like the eyes of a reptile.
Followed the head a neck, as it were
neck. still rising slowly out of that
poverty cold water-a body, long,
boat shaped, and black-green, and
feathery. The body floated low, un-
like wild ducks, which rides high,
or a CULTS, which rides higher. There
you had your cormorant, and the same
was a bird, diver and a fisher.
Three times his 1head-that head
with green yes-described almost a
complete circle. Then he outspread
wings, vast and black. outstretched
neck, and flew to a post bearded with
green watered things.
Thus for ten minutes our cormor-
ant. You would have said he was
asleep, and been considerably startled
because at the end of that time he saw
fit to drop from that post. head first
and suddenly, as one slain by heart
disease. For 80 seconds he was no
more seen, and when he appeared
again, bobbing up on the waves I'M
cannily, it was with large size gray
mullet-not unlike a silver bar it
looked-in his beak.
Slid by then ten watery minutes, at
the end of which appeared the pere-
CRIME falcon, racing across the miles
like a swift and well armed cruiser.
He did not alter his course. He was
high up, and no man could tell wheth-
er he had seen anything or nothing.
He simply dashed up out of anywhere
the next county, or Holland, for
aught L know. for he could do his 80
miles an hour and more-and, just
when he was nearly above the cormor-
ant shut his wings, frightened his
feathers, and fell like a blue steel
wedge.
Now mark the wonder of birds and
their mysterious character. TIL then
the black sea bird had shown no signs
of life at all, except to blink one hor-
ribIe, half-shut reptilian green eye
the one facing the falcon. Nor did he
show any signs of life till the hiss of
the prince of slayers' falling body was
in his cara yard from him, a yard
'twixt him and death.
Then he fell, head down and with
out a word, and the splash Of the wa
ter from his dive wetted the imperious
falcons grand wings as he swept over
the very post top, and on with out
spread rushing swishing pinions.
The falcon did not pull up, neither
checked he his speed. Indeed. he new
err even looked round to see what had
happened to the prey he so nearly
slew-in pure sport. surely, for an cpl
cure of game like the peregrine could
never have fouled his princely beak
with that black eff7uvia-but swept on
superb1y, winnowfng across the blood
red eye of the setting sun, a living
silhouette of war incarnate.
An hour later the cormorant was
trying to sleep sitting erect on a ledge
of the Isle of Wight cliffs. blinking
his green eyes In the glare of the
search1ights as Britain's first line. his
ma festy's home fleet, put to sea from
Spithead en- route for maneuvers.