NATURE ON THE ROOF. 89 



the full sense, remaining all the year round, though 

 principally seen in the warmer months ; hut they are 

 there in the colder, hidden away, and if the tempera- 

 ture rises, will venture out and hawk to and fro in the 

 midst of the winter. Tame pigeons and doves hardly 

 come into this paper, but still it is their habit to use 

 roofs as tree -tops. Eats and mice creep through the 

 crevices of roofs, and in old country-houses hold a 

 sort of nightly carnival, racing to and fro under the 

 roof. Weasels sometimes follow them indoors and up 

 to their roof strongholds. 



When the first warm rays of spring sunshine strike 

 against the southern side of the chimney, sparrows 

 perch there and enjoy it; and again in autumn, when 

 the general warmth of the atmosphere is declining, 

 they still find a little pleasant heat there. They make 

 use of the radiation of heat, as the gardener does who 

 trains his fruit-trees to a wall. Before the autumn 

 has thinned the leaves, the swallows gather on the 

 highest ridge of the roof in a row and twitter to each 

 other ; they know the time is approaching when they 

 must depart for another climate. In winter, many 

 birds seek the thatched roofs to roost. Wrens, tits, 

 and even blackbirds roost in the holes left by sparrows 

 or starlings. 



Every crevice is the home of insects, or used by 

 them for the deposit of their eggs under the tiles or 

 slates, where mortar has dropped out between the 

 bricks, in the holes of thatch, and on the straws. 

 The number of insects that frequent a large roof must 

 be very great all the robins, wrens, bats, and so on, 

 can scarcely affect them; nor the spiders, though 



