I wondered where its mate was, following it from place to place as it flew, determined now I had found a bird to keep it in sight.

Presently a great blackness appeared low down in the cloudy sky, and rose and spread, travelling fast towards me, and the little wheatear fled in fear from it and vanished from sight over the rim of the down.

But I was there to defy the weather, and so instead of following the bird in search of shelter I sat down among some low furze bushes and waited and watched.

By and by I caught sight of three magpies, rising one by one at long intervals from the furze and flying laboriously towards a distant hill-top grove of pines.

Then I heard the wailing cry of a peewit, and caught sight of the bird at a distance, and soon afterwards a sound of another character--the harsh angry cry of a carrion crow, almost as deep as the raven's angry voice.
Before long I discovered the bird at a great height coming towards me in hot pursuit of a kestrel.