THE COCKEREL AND MARTIN 181 



my visit must be told. Several pairs of martins were 

 making their nests under the eaves of a cottage 

 opposite to the Queen's Arms, where I stayed; and 

 on going out about seven o'clock in the morning, I 

 stood to watch some of the birds getting mud at a 

 pool which had been made by the night's rain in the 

 middle of the street. It happened that some fowls 

 had come out of the inn yard, and were walking or 

 standing near the puddle picking up gravel or any 

 small morsel they could find. Among them was a 

 cockerel, a big, ungainly, yellowish Cochin, in the 

 hobbledehoy stage of that ugliest and most ungrace- 

 ful variety. For some time this bird stood idly by 

 the pool, but by-and-by the movements of the martins 

 coming and going between the cottage and the puddle 

 attracted his attention, and he began to watch them 

 with a strange interest ; and then all at once he made 

 a vicious peck at one occupied in deftly gathering a 

 pellet of clay close to his great, feathered feet. The 

 martin flitted lightly away, and after a turn or two, 

 dropped down again at almost the same spot. The 

 fowl had watched it, and as soon as it came down 

 moved a step or two nearer to it with deliberation, 

 then made a violent dash and peck at it, and was no 

 nearer to hitting it than before. The same thing 

 occurred again and again, the martin growing shyer 

 after each attack ; then other martins came, and he, 

 finding them less cautious than the first, stalked them 

 in turn and made futile attacks on them. Convinced 



