204 ADVENTURES AMONG BIRDS 



of branches and leaves. Doubtless it once grew on 

 a tree and had a strong straight bole of its own when 

 the tree died, and during the slow dying and gradual 

 decay of the support it added to its wood and grew 

 harder to meet the changing situation, until when 

 the old trunk it grew against had crumbled to dust it 

 was able to stand erect, a perfect independent tree. 



At the too famous Abbey the chief interest was in 

 the birds. Starlings, sparrows, and daws were there in 

 numbers, and many blue and ox-eye tits, fly-catchers, 

 and redstarts, all feeding their young or bringing them 

 off. The starlings were most abundant, and the young 

 were being spilt from the walls all over the place. I 

 talked with a slow old labourer who was lazily sweeping 

 the dead leaves and straws from the smooth turf which 

 forms the floor of the roofless ruin, when one of the 

 young birds, more stupid than the others, began 

 following us about, clamouring to be fed. The old 

 sweeper, using his broom, gently pushed the poor fool 

 away : " There, there, go away, or you'll be getting 

 hurt," he said, and the bird went. 



" No more rare birds this season ! " I said and turned 

 homewards ; but in Gloucestershire I found a man who 

 told me of a colony of the marsh warbler, a rarity I had 

 not counted on meeting ; better still, he took me to 

 it, although he wished me to understand that it was his 

 colony, his own discovery, also that he had been making 

 a good thing out of it. He left me on the spot to 

 experience that rarest delight of the bird-seeker, the 

 making the acquaintance, and growing hourly and 



