NIGHT BIRDS 



hen settles to the four-and-twenty days of hatching. 

 When one hen comes off her nest to feed, others 

 follow, and the proud cock may then be seen feeding 

 with his unassuming wives. 



A RED squirrel was racing at speed along a low branch 

 in a Chiltern beech-wood when it spied 

 The Alien danger ahead in the form of a human being, 

 Squirrel and instantly turned itself into a statue ; for 

 a long ten minutes it clung motionless to a 

 beech-stem, and not a hair flickered. Suddenly a small 

 sound electrified it into life, and it bounded on as if 

 some fiend were on its trail as it was, no doubt, in a 

 red squirrel's view, for a great grey squirrel came in 

 ferocious pursuit. The aliens are now spreading through 

 the Chilterns, though game-preservers have set a price 

 on their heads. 



NIGHT BIRDS 



THE mistle-thrush seems to blow his trumpet-calls for 

 all the world to hear; other songs seem 

 Song of dedicated to one listener's ears possibly 

 Songs human ears, as when a tame robin perches 



on the spade of a gardener who has been 

 digging, and whispers a confidential lyric of thanks for 

 worms. By a forest stream the writer found the begin- 

 ning of a nest in a thick bush, a homely structure of 

 oak-leaves. Through the thicket there presently slipped 

 a slender, brownish bird, and as she went to the nest 

 with some small roots there was breathed from a brier 

 nearby a long-drawn note of purest melody, thrice 



6 5 F 



