CHAPTER IX. 



The orchard Emigrant martins The missel-thrush Caravan 

 route of birds and animals A fox in ambush A snake in 

 a clock. 



BROAD green paths, wide enough for three or four 

 to walk abreast, lead from the garden at Wick 

 into the orchard. On the side next the meadows the 

 orchard is enclosed by a hawthorn hedge, thick from 

 constant cropping ; on the other a solid stone wall, 

 about nine feet high, parts it from the road. One 

 summer day a party of martins attacked this wall out- 

 side, and endeavoured to make their nest-holes in it. 

 These birds are called by the labourers " quar-martins," 

 because they breed in holes drilled in the face of the 

 sandy precipices of quarries. The boys " draw " 

 their nests climbing up at the risk of their limbs 

 by inserting a long brier, and, when they feel the nest, 

 giving it a twist which causes the hooked prickles of 

 the stick to take firm hold, and the nest is then dragged 

 bodily out. The flight that came to the orchard wall 

 numbered about ten or twelve, and for the best part 

 of the day they remained there, working their very 

 hardest at the mortar between the stones. 



