40 By Leafy Ways. 



A pair of these bold little birds lately took posses- 

 sion of a West Country letter-box, and, regarding with 

 disgust the letters with which the postman persisted in 

 littering their habitation, they carried them off as fast 

 as they appeared, and dropped them over the neigh- 

 bouring hedge an irregular mode of delivery that 

 would have cost the old postman dear, had not a watch 

 been set and the real culprits discovered. 



Young jackdaws, not yet masters of the art of flying, 

 flutter from point to point of the cliffs about their nest, 

 or perch in noisy companies on the pinnacles of the 

 old cathedral. 



Even now the starlings are beginning to muster. 

 Down in the marshes there are troops a hundred 

 strong. In a few weeks, the dusky clans will have 

 gathered into those vast armies whose orderly array 

 and skilful evolutions are a feature of the autumn 

 landscape. 



In a corner of the orchard, a party of young wood- 

 peckers, hardly yet able to fly, are climbing about 

 among the trees, digging into the soft wood, splitting off 

 pieces of loose bark, and bringing to light shining 

 chrysalids and juicy caterpillars lurking underneath. 



In their younger days, their development is accom- 

 panied, as might be expected, by a rapid rise in the 

 temperature of their blood, which changes in a single 

 week from 97 deg. F. to 106 deg. F., when they are 

 sufficiently matured to climb out of the hole. 



Swallows and martins, whose graceful flight and 



