The Cuckoo 



CHAPTER XII 



Birds of the Peak 



Lunching one day at Buxton, I hobnobbed with a 

 man whose classic features, fine physique and mag- 

 nificent beard filled me with a great admiration. He was 

 the vicar of a neighbouring parish, a man of the open 

 air, a cultivated mind, and large sympathies — the very 

 person I wanted to meet, for doubtless he would know 

 the birds and be able to tell me all I wanted to learn. 

 By-and-by the subject was introduced, and he replied 

 that he did not know very much about birds, but he 

 had noticed a particularly big crow in his parish — big 

 and black — and he would like to know what it was. 



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