It is equally plain that these (from the angler's point of view) injurious birds are not breeders by the waterside. Their numbers are too great: they come, ninety per cent. of them I should say, from farm-houses, villages, and towns at a distance of a good many miles from the water. The revels of the swifts were brought prematurely {268} to an end by a great change in the weather, which began with a thunderstorm on 27th July, and two days later a greater storm, with hail the size of big marrowfat peas, which fell so abundantly that the little lawn was all white as if snow had fallen. From that time onwards storm succeeded storm, and finally the weather became steadily bad; and we had rough, cold, wet days right on to the 10th of August. It was a terrible time for the poor holiday people all over the country, and bad too for the moulting and late-breeding birds. As a small set-off to all the discomfort of these dreary days, we had a green lawn once more at the cottage. I had made one or two attempts at watering it, but the labour proved too great to a lazy man, and now Nature had come with her great watering-pot and restored its spring-like verdure and softness. During the wettest and coldest days I spent hours watching the swallows and swifts flying about all day long in the rain. These are, indeed, our only summer land-birds that never seek a shelter from the wet, and which are not affected in their flight by a wetted plumage. Their upper feathers are probably harder and more closely knit and impervious to moisture than those of other kinds. It may be seen that a swallow or swift, when flying about in the rain, at short intervals gives himself a quick shake as if to throw off the raindrops. Then, too, the food and constant exercise probably serve to keep them warmer than they would be sitting motionless in a dry place. Swifts, we sometimes see, are numbed {269} and even perish of cold during frosty nights in spring; I doubt that the cold ever kills them by day when they can keep perpetually moving. [Sidenote: Sand-martins] Day by day, during this long spell of summer wet and cold, these birds diminished in number, until they were almost all gone--swifts, swallows, and house-martins; but we were not to be without a swallow, for as these went, sand-martins came in, and increased in numbers until they were in thousands. We had them every day and all day before us, flying up and down the valley, in the shelter of the woods, their pale plumage and wavering flight making them look in the distance like great white flies against the wall of black-green trees and gloomy sky beyond.