BIRDS AND MAN 55 



was the cause of the excitement, as the birds in- 

 creased in number as long as I stood at that spot, 

 until there could not have been less than forty or 

 fifty, and when I again walked on they followed. 

 One expects to be mobbed and screamed at by gulls, 

 terns, lapwings, and some other species, when ap- 

 proaching their nesting-places, but a hostile demon- 

 stration of this kind from such minute creatures as 

 gold-crests, usually indifferent to man, struck me 

 as very unusual and somewhat ridiculous. What, 

 I asked myself, could be the reason of their sudden 

 alarm, when my previous visits to the wood had not 

 excited them in the least ? I could only suppose 

 that I had, without knowing it, brushed against a 

 nest, and the alarm note of the parent birds had ex- 

 cited the others and caused them to gather near me, 

 and that in the obscure light they had mistaken me 

 for some rapacious animal. The right explanation 

 (I think it the right one) was found by chance three 

 months later. 



In August I was in Ireland, staying at a country 

 house among the Wicklow hills. There were several 

 swallows' nests in the stable, one or two so low that 

 they could be reached by the hand, and the birds 

 went in and out regardless of the presence of any 

 person. In a few days the young were out, sitting 



