i8o ADVENTURES AMONG BIRDS 



and whose glad welcome is one of the sweetest 

 things in life. 



This then was motive the first, and when I dis- 

 covered my lost friends not far from the town I found 

 them unchanged, still in the old mind, the feeling 

 that I was one of them, of their very kin, and though 

 rarely seen and perhaps regarded as the vagabond of 

 the family, not less well loved on that account. 



My second object was to look at Montacute House 

 and park which had been missed on previous visits. 

 The park held me for several hours, for it is like a 

 wilderness or a place in a dispeopled land that was once 

 a park, but I found no feathered rarity there or any- 

 where in the country round. 



As to the famous Montacute house, it is built of Ham 

 Hill stone the one building stone I cannot abide. 

 By others it is greatly admired, and it is perhaps worth 

 explaining why I, loving colour as I do, yellows as 

 much as any, have this feeling about our famous yellow 

 stone. It is, I take it, an associate feeling due to the 

 disagreeable effect which yellow as an interior colour 

 produces in me. Sherborne Abbey is without a doubt 

 one of our noblest ecclesiastical buildings, more beautiful 

 in the stone sculpture enriching its roof than any cathe- 

 dral or church in the land. Yet I cannot appreciate 

 it, since the effect of the colour is a severe headache, 

 a profound depression. After an hour inside I feel 

 that I am yellow all through, that my very bones are 

 dyed yellow, that if I were to drop down among the 

 furze-bushes on some neighbouring common and rest 



