TITS AT WORK 



The average Himalayan house is such a 

 ramshackle affair that it is a miracle how it 

 holds together. The roof does not fit properly 

 on to the walls, and in these latter there are 

 cracks and chinks galore. Perhaps it is due 

 to these defects that hill houses do not fall 

 down more often than they do. 



Thanks to their numerous cracks they do 

 not offer half the resistance to a gale of wind 

 that a well-built house would. 



Be this as it may, the style of architecture 

 that finds favour in the hills is quite a god- 

 send to the birds, or rather to such of the 

 feathered folk as nestle in holes. A house in 

 the Himalayas is, from an avian point of 

 view, a maze of nesting sites, a hotel in which 

 unfurnished rooms are always available. 



The sparrow usually monopolises these nest- 

 ing sites. He is a regular dog-in-the-manger, 

 for he keeps other birds out of the holes he 



himself cannot utilise. However, the sparrow 

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