out, and I could only conclude that the
lark has been pretty well wiped out from all that part of the plain over
which the soldiers range.

At Stonehenge I found a good number of watchers, about a couple of
hundred, already assembled, but more were coming in continually, and
a mile or so of the road to Amesbury visible from "The Stones" had
at times the appearance of a ribbon of fire from the lamps of this
continuous stream of coming cyclists. Altogether about five to six
hundred persons gathered at "The Stones," mostly young men on bicycles
who came from all the Wiltshire towns within easy distance, from
Salisbury to Bath. I had a few good minutes at the ancient temple when
the sight of the rude upright stones looking black against the moonlit
and star-sprinkled sky produced an unexpected feeling in me: but the
mood could not last; the crowd was too big and noisy, and the noises
they made too suggestive of a Bank Holiday crowd at the Crystal Palace.

At three o'clock a ribbon of slate-grey cloud appeared above the eastern
horizon, and broadened by degrees, and pretty soon made it evident that
the sun would be hidden at its rising at a quarter to four. The crowd,
however, was not down-hearted; it sang and shouted; and by and by, just
outside the barbed-wire enclosure a rabbit was unearthed, and about
three hundred young men with shrieks of excitement set about its
capture. It was a lively scene, a general scrimmage, in which everyone
was trying to capture an elusive football with ears and legs to it,
which went darting and spinning about hither and thither among the
multitudinous legs, until earth compassionately opened and swallowed
poor distracted bunny up. It was but little better inside the enclosure,
where the big fallen stones behind the altar-stone, in the middle, on
which the first rays of sun would fall, were taken possession of by a
crowd of young men who sat and stood packed together like guillemots on
a rock. These too, cheated by that rising cloud of the spectacle they
had come so far to see, wanted to have a little fun, and began to be
very obstreperous. By and by they found out an amusement very much to
their taste.

Motor-cars were now arriving every minute, bringing important-looking
persons who had timed their journeys so as to come upon the scene a
little before 3:45, when the sun would show on the horizon; and whenever
one of these big gentlemen appeared within the circle of stones,
especially if