154 ADVENTURES AMONG BIRDS 



he served them at their own doors. On certain days 

 of the week he visited the neighbouring villages doing 

 a circuit of twenty-five or thirty miles in the day. On 

 these occasions he had a little girl of ten to guide him. 

 Of course she had to attend school on most days but 

 on Saturdays she was free and she could generally get 

 permission to absent herself from school an another day. 

 Failing her he had to take a larger girl, out of school, 

 who was not half so intelligent as the other and not 

 so well liked by the cottage women. 



I noticed that this man, like many other blind persons 

 I have met, though big and strong and in the prime 

 of life, was a very quiet still man who spoke in a low 

 voice and was subdued and gentle in manner. I think 

 it is the habit of always listening that makes them so 

 quiet, and I wondered what his sensations were when 

 a motor cyclist passed us, going by like a whirlwind, 

 a horrible object, shaking the earth, and making it hate- 

 ful until he was a mile away with a torrent of noise. 



In my quieter way on my wheel I rambled on from 

 county to county viewing many towns and villages, 

 conversing with persons of all ages and conditions yet 

 all this left but slight and quickly-fading impressions, 

 for in my flittings about a green land when it was green- 

 est I had an object ever present in my mind — the desire 

 to see and hear certain rare singing birds, found chiefly 

 in the south, whose rarity is in most cases due to the 

 collectors for the cabinet, bird-catchers, and other 

 Philistines, who occupy themselves in the destruction 

 of all loveliest forms of life. Thus, the clear whistle 



