140 A Midland Village: Garden and Meadow. 



also sometimes touched, as mine was yesterday 

 when I went to see how my young swallows were 

 getting on under the roof of an outhouse, and 

 found them all sitting in a row on a rafter, like 

 school-children ; or when the young goldfinches 

 in the chestnut tree grew too big for their nest, 

 but would persist in sitting in it till they sat it all 

 out of shape, and no one could make out how 

 they contrived to hold on by it any longer. 

 Young birds too, like young trout, are much less 

 suspicious than old ones, and will often let you 

 come quite close to them. In Magdalen Walk at 

 Oxford the young birds delight to hop about on 

 the gravel path, supplying themselves, I suppose, 

 with the pebbles which they need for digestion ; 

 and here one day in July a young Robin repeat- 

 edly let me come within two yards of him, at 

 which distance from me he picked up a fat green 

 caterpillar, swallowed it with great gusto, and 

 literally smacked his bill afterwards. The very 

 close examination thus afforded me of this living 

 young Robin disclosed a strong rufous tint on 

 the tail-coverts, of which I can find nothing in 

 descriptions of the bird ; if this is usually the 



