THE MARSH WARBLER'S MUSIC 201 



with a round straight bole three feet in circumference 

 and fifteen feet in height, with a rough elm-tree-like 

 bark, crowned with a dense round mass of branches 

 and leaves. Doubtless it once grew on a tree and had 

 a strong straight bole of its own when the tree died, 

 and during the slow dying and gradual decay of the 

 support it added to its wood and grew harder to meet 

 the changing situation, until when the old trunk it 

 grew against had crumbled to dust it was able to 

 stand erect, a perfect independent tree. 



At the too famous abbey the chief interest was in 

 the birds. Starlings, sparrows, and daws were there 

 in numbers, and many blue and ox-eye tits, fly- 

 catchers, and redstarts, all feeding their young or 

 bringing them off. The starlings were most abundant, 

 and the young were being spilt from the walls all 

 over the place. I talked with a slow old labourer 

 who was lazily sweeping the dead leaves and straws 

 from the smooth turf which forms the floor of the 

 roofless ruin, when one of the young birds, more 

 stupid than the others, began following us about, 

 clamouring to be fed. The old sweeper, using his 

 broom, gently pushed the poor fool away* ''There, 

 there, go away, or you'll be getting hurt," he said, 

 and the bird went. 



"No more rare birds this season!" I said and 

 turned homewards; but in Gloucestershire I found 

 a man who told me of a colony of the marsh warbler, 

 a rarity I had not counted on meeting; better still, 

 he took me to it, although he wished me to under- 

 stand that it was his colony, his own discovery, also 



