172 BIRDS OF THE COUNTRYSIDE 



Another example. There was only one martin's nest 

 in the village, but so far as I could make out there 

 were three martins to it. One day I found that the 

 sparrows had turned them out and usurped the nest. 

 But lo ! two days later the martins were back again 

 at their old nest, all three of them (a female and two 

 males, as I guessed, for one of them remained in 

 the nest making it smooth and shipshape with her 

 chin after the untidy sparrows, and the other two 

 hovered fussily and amicably about her), and held 

 possession without any further interference. There is 

 genuine alchemy in this individual variability and 

 unaccountableness of living creatures. 



Once when I was in Porlock, on the Devonshire 

 border, I saw a parent martin, instead of darting about 

 for insects in the wavering, butterfly or rather bat-like 

 flight of this species, fly straight from the nest and 

 perch upon the thatch of a cottage, dipping her snub 

 bill down upon it repeatedly and then fly back to the 

 nest with her booty. This she did again and again, 

 and it was an economical departure from custom. In 

 the evening the sky was occupied in three different 

 layers, screaming swifts in the upper ether, twittering 

 swallows in the middle, and stuttering martins in the 

 lower, no higher than the cottage chimneys, and it was 

 very natural for an individual of the species in the 

 lowest stratum and with the weakest flight to hit upon 

 a new and accessible method of procuring food. 



The chiff-chaff is the least beautiful and interest- 

 ing of his congeners, wood-wren and willow-wren well 

 called the leaf- warblers and yet possesses a special 

 quality in which they must yield him precedence. For 

 he is the first of the migrants to arrive, sometimes in 

 blizzards, often at the heels of a withering east wind. 

 Thus he is welcome indeed for his courage and his 

 tidings, as he works at his minute elfin forge of two 

 notes, hammering the new year into its green shape. 

 For little Vulcan is Mercury too, the winged messenger 

 of life, freshness and renewal. His form and song are 

 familiar to all who have ears, and so we regard them not. 

 But violet and chiff-chaff are more important than Bank 



