ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: Chief Scout Talks

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLIX, Issue 290, 6 November 1929, Page 11

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: Chief Scout Talks

No. 5.

I’ve been, gooming. Don’t you know what gooming means? Well, it’s another of those words, like Jamboree, that I can’t quite explain, but I can tell you how I did it. I slipped out at an early hour, before anyone was up—before even the sun was up or had thought of getting up. I loosed the dogs and away we went. Down the hillside we trotted, through the meadow, unavoidably rousing up the dewy backed sneep as we passed. Far away along the valley to the eastward the mist was lying across the marsh, while above it the rosy, tawny sky showed day was coming on. . . As I stood still to watch I felt the coolness and the freshness of the virgin air; it was palpitating with the songs of birds on every side —far and near. Among the Birds. In the wood as we entered it a thrush, sitting on the highest twig of the highest tree be could find, was pouring forth a continuous stream of loud thanksgiving. With head thrown up and facing to the east, he paid no attention to us as ho sang: “Fill a bean, fill a bean, quick, quick, quick. Stick to it, stick to it I” Close by a bunting was ordering his breakfast-: “A little bit of bread and no cheese, please.” And what with chiff-chaffs and warblers, robins and wrens, mixing their notes with the mellow tones of a blackbird, it made one wonder whether or not it was a nightingale who was joining the chorus from the lower end of the wood. AVe came out in the grass lane be-

tween the hedges which gave us cover as we passed between the ploughland on our right and the great tussocky hillside on our left, so that, if we trod lightly,, we could do much successful stalking of birds. Stalkers often forget that, however silent or hidden they may be, a heavy footfall —even of a dog—gives warning to a wary bird while yet a long way off. Hook-00, hook-00, wuk-wuk-wukoo!” Standing in the lane one hears, above the warbling chorus of the wood, the cuckoo's call, answered like an echo by his friend across the valley. And then the sharp challenge of old Roger the pheasant cuts harshly through the air, “Tanar-chock.” We pass under a tree and there is a tremendous explosion as three woodpigeons suddenly awake to find US there; they flutter panic-stricken through the branches and burst away in whistling flight. The Widow Plover.

Down the lane ahead of us bobs the white scut of a rabbit skipping home. At the stile, peering through our glasses in a straight line for the third post in the opposite fence across the plough, we look to see if Widow Plover is on her nest. It is not yet bright enough to see well, but -we recognise a tiny blob, that is her head, among the clods of earth. She is there, and there she sticks, brave heart, when we pass not many yards away. “Widow,” I call her, because she has no husband, like the other three nestetrs in the grass field on the left, to warn her when there’s danger near. . . Away across the marsh t’he castle now. shows battle-

OUT IN THE IMORNING EARLY.

(By Lord Baden-Powell.)

ments of tawny pink, while yet its base is lost in blue-grey shadows and in mist. The sun is rising through a rose-pink, diaphanous haze and is putting colour everywhere. Overhead, across the clear lemon sky a wild duck wings his line —stout fellow. He is the only bird among them that has enough character to know liis own mind. In the tussock close by there is a sudden rustle and a hare jumps up and scampers off—blippity-blip-blip—-with his black-tipped ears straight up on end. When Man Wakes Up. For a moment the dogs think “Here’s my chancel” But a word of warning comes —and we all stand still and watch our hair putting the distance between us. He looks so big and red athwart the morning sun that the sheep near whom he runs mistake him for a dog and scamper off, their woolly coats all bumping up and down. A few steps further on we put up Mrs Hare from her home in a warm grass clump, and away she goes, exactly on the line of her lord and master. I wonder if he told her which way he was going. Brrrr. Up lump a pair of partridges with a suddenness that makes one start, and away they whizz across the plough and then slide up the hill and out of sight beyond the copse. “Tok!” A gun is fired in the distance, and at the same time a rattling click and a rumble begins to make itself heard, and then sounds strangely near as a trolley swings along the railway over a mile away. Man is awake—the sun is up —the goom is over 1