CHAPTER VIII. 



Birds of the farmhouse Speech of a starling Population of a gable 

 The king of the hedge The thrush's anvil. 



WICK farmhouse is thatched, and has many gables 

 hidden with ivy. In these broad expanses of 

 thatch, on the great " chimney-tuns," as country folk 

 call them, and in the ivy, tribes of birds have taken up 

 their residence. The thatch has grown so thick in the 

 course of years by the addition of fresh coats that it 

 projects far from the walls and forms wide, far-reaching 

 eaves. Over the cellar the roof descends within three 

 or four feet of the ground, the wall being low, and the 

 eaves here cast a shadow with the sun nearly at the 

 zenith. 



On the higher parts of the roof, especially round 

 the chimneys, the starlings have made their holes, and 

 in the early summer are continuously flying to and 

 fro their young, who never cease crying for food the 

 whole day through. A tall ash tree stands in the 

 hedgerow, about fifty yards from the house. On this 

 tree, which is detached, so that they can see all round, 

 the starlings perch before they come to the roof, as 

 if to reconnoitre, and to exchange pourparlers with 



