8 SOME BIRDS AND A TOWN GARDEN 
down to the pond for a drink (see Part II, 
p. 15) and flew right away. 
This happened in the morning, and as I 
did not see him again that day, he probably 
had gone to find his food somewhere after 
his hard work. It all seemed very human 
to me. In the virginian creeper against the 
house (see Part II, p. 13) a pair of sparrows 
have been building for the past few weeks 
with hay and straw and bits of cloth, and 
the nest does not seem half finished yet. 
This shows the long time sparrows may take 
to prepare their home, and it is by no means 
a ‘small\or' mean’ ‘structure, ")( See” Parteas 
pp. IoI, 102). Sometimes at daybreak I 
awake ; perhaps it is the sparrows in the 
ivy (I have known it said that they have 
been heard to snore!), and I hear just outside 
my bedroom window a cock’s soft, waking, 
musical notes to his hen. I wonder what 
he says to her! (The cock sparrow utters 
a comforting pleased series of notes, too, 
quite different to its usual chirp, when it 
joins its fellows or its mates, in the evening, 
