68 BIRDS AND MAN 



in my mind with the thought of Bath, and has given 

 me an exaggerated idea of its charm. 



When staying in Bath in the winter of 1898-9 I 

 saw a good deal of bird life even in the heart of the 

 town. At the back of the house I lodged in, in New 

 King Street, within four minutes' walk of the Pump 

 Room, there was a strip of ground called a garden, 

 but with no plants except a few dead stalks and 

 stumps and two small leafless trees. Clothes-lines 

 were hung there, and the ground was littered with 

 old bricks and rubbish, and at the far end of the strip 

 there was a fowl-house with fowls in it, a small shed, 

 and a wood-pile. Yet to this unpromising-looking 

 spot came a considerable variety of birds. Starlings, 

 sparrows, and chaffinches were the most numerous, 

 while the blackbird, thrush, robin, hedge-sparrow 

 and wren were each represented by a pair. The 

 wrens lived in the wood-pile, and were the only 

 members of the little feathered community that did 

 not join the others at table when crumbs and scraps 

 were thrown out. 



It was surprising to find all or most of these birds 

 evidently wintering on that small plot of ground in the 

 middle of the town, solely for the sake of the warmth 

 and shelter it afforded them, and the chance crumbs 

 that came in their way. It is true that I fed them 



