66 BIRDS AND MAN 



beginning his work he solemnly made the following 

 remark : " Is it not curious, sir, considering the 

 distance the birds go to get their sticks, and the 

 work of carrying them, that they never, by any 

 chance, think to come down and pick up what they 

 have dropped ! " I replied that I had heard the same 

 thing said before, and that it was in all the books ; 

 and then I told him of the scene I had just witnessed. 

 He was very much surprised, and said that such a 

 thing had never been witnessed before at that place. 

 It had a disturbing effect on him, and he appeared 

 to me to resent this departure from their old ancient 

 conservative ways on the part of the cathedral 

 birds. 



For many mornings after I continued to watch 

 the daws until the nest-building was finished, with- 

 out witnessing any fresh outbreak of intelligence 

 in the colony : they had once more shaken down 

 into the old inconvenient traditional groove, to the 

 manifest relief of the man with the broom and 

 barrow. 



Bath, like Wells, is a city that has a considerable 

 amount of nature in its composition, and is set down 

 in a country of hills, woods, rocks and streams, 

 and is therefore, like the other, a city loved by 

 daws and by many other wild birds. It is a town 



