170 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE 



deteriorated from the aesthetic point of view, and 

 probably also from the utilitarian. There are no 

 vacant places. Thus, the streams are fished by 

 herons, grebes, and kingfishers, while the rushy 

 margins are worked by coots and gallinules, and, 

 above the surface, reed and sedge-warblers, with 

 other kinds, inhabit the reed-beds. The decaying 

 forest tree is the province of the woodpecker, of 

 which there are three kinds; and the trunks and 

 branches of all trees, healthy or decaying, are 

 quartered by the small creeper, that leaves no 

 crevice unexplored in its search for minute insects 

 and their eggs. He is assisted by the nuthatch; 

 and in summer the wryneck comes (if he still 

 lives), and deftly picks up the little active ants 

 that are always wildly careering over the boles. 

 The foliage is gleaned by warblers and others; 

 and not even the highest terminal twigs are left 

 unexamined by tits and their fellow-seekers after 

 little things. Thrushes seek for worms in moist 

 grounds about the woods; starlings and rooks go 

 to the pasture lands; the lark and his relations 

 keep to the cultivated fields; and there also dwells 

 the larger partridge. Waste and stony grounds 

 are occupied by the chats, and even on the barren 



