168 ADVENTURES AMONG BIRDS 



naturally friends. He is one of those strange but not 

 very uncommon persons who lead a double life. To 

 some of us he is known as an ornithologist; to the 

 theatre-going public he is a finished actor, and those 

 who know him only in his impersonations would, 

 I imagine, hear with surprise, perhaps incredulity, 

 that, off the boards, he is a haunter of silent, solitary 

 places where birds inhabit, that in these communings 

 he has a joy with which the playgoer intermeddleth not. 

 The heath was a very extensive one, covering an 

 area of several square miles, and it was not strange 

 that when I searched the spot he had described I 

 failed to find the birds. I then set patiently and 

 methodically to work to search the furzy places, 

 especially where the growth was thickest, in other 

 parts, and after two entire days spent in this quest 

 I began to fear I was not going to find them after all. 

 But I had spent so many days and weeks on former 

 occasions in searching for this same most elusive little 

 creature in eight or nine other spots where I have 

 found him in the south and west country, and knew 

 his hiding habits so well, that I still allowed myself 

 to hope. However, after yet another morning spent 

 in vain I resolved to give it up that same evening 

 and go back west. It had been labour in vain, I 

 thought sadly, then smiled and felt a little encouraged 

 to remember that "Labour in Vain" was the actual 

 name of a barren stony piece of ground with a little 

 furze growing on it, where many years ago I had 

 found my first furze-wren — a spot distant about thirty 

 miles from the nearest known locality for the bird. 



