BIRDS IN CORNISH VILLAGE 307 



She was very feeble at the last, and one cold day 

 when she could not leave her bed, the extraor- 

 dinary idea occurred to some one of her people 

 that it might be a good thing to light a fire in 

 her room. The fireplace was examined and was 

 found to have no flue, or that the flue had been 

 filled with earth or cement. The village builder 

 was called in, and with the aid of a man on the 

 roof and poles and various implements he suc- 

 ceeded in extracting two or three barrow-loads of 

 hard earth which had no doubt once been sticks, 

 centuries ago, as the building was very ancient. 

 No one had remembered that the daws had al- 

 ways occupied the same chimney; the old dame 

 herself had seen them going in and out of it from 

 her childhood, and her end was probably hastened 

 by the disturbance made in cleaning it. Now she 

 is gone the daws here are in possession of it 

 once more. 



All through the month of May daws were to 

 be seen about the village, dropping from time to 

 time upon the chimney-pots where they had their 

 nests and occasionally bringing some slight mate- 

 rials to form a new lining, but it was very rare 

 to see one with a stick in his beak. The flues 



