COUNTRY LIFE
I REACHED East Devon, which I used to know only in patches, by way of Dorset, which is pretty familiar to me. What 1 did know of the former was confined to the epic coastline ; and so I revisited Brans- combe, once the very bliss of solitude. Now its sea-scented sward is a car-park, and collective man there makes a bid to outnumber the pebbles of the beach. What is surprising is that the birds which frequent the mud-flats along the estuary of the Axe—mostly gulls but a few curlew, redshanks, flights of fishing shelduck and oyster-catchers—are indifferent to the host of strollers who turn the river-walk into a boule- vard, and the endless stream of cars up and down the road beside it. The local Press has reported a genuine egret among the normal and native birds of the estuary, but neithei. I nor the milling multitudes:4 the curious set eyes upon what would have been the most conspicuous of splendid exotics.
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