WILD LIFE IN A SOUTHERN COUNTY. 85 



These sticks are nearly all of the same size, brown and 

 black from age and the loss of the sap, the bark re- 

 maining on. It is surprising how the birds contrive 

 to find so many suitable to their purpose, searching 

 about under the trees ; for they do not break them 

 off, but take those that have fallen. 



The best place for finding these sticks and those 

 the rooks use is where a tree has been felled or a 

 thick hedge cut some months before. In cutting up 

 the smaller branches into fagots the men necessarily 

 frequently step on them, and so break off innumer- 

 able twigs too short to be tied up in the bundle. 

 After they have finished fagoting, the women rake 

 up the fragments for their cottage fires ; and later on, 

 as the spring advances, the birds come for the remain^ 

 ing twigs, of which great quantities are left. These 

 they pick up from among the grass ; and it is notice- 

 able that they like twigs that are dead but not de- 

 cayed : they do not care for them when green, and 

 reject them when rotten. Have they discovered that 

 green wood shrinks in drying, and that rotten wood 

 is untrustworthy ? Rooks, jackdaws, and pigeons 

 find their building materials in this way, where trees 

 or hedges have been cut ; yet even then it must require 

 some patience. They use also a great deal of material 

 rearranged from the nests of last year that is, rooks 

 and jackdaws. 



Stepping out at last into the belfry, be careful how 

 you tread ; for the flooring is worm-eaten, and here 

 and there planks are loose : keep your foot, if possible, 



