WILD BIRDS THROUGH THE YEAR 21 



more with the meal ; though going there one day I 

 noticed something on the mill head's sleepy pool 

 that I took for meal at first the water was spread 

 with a sheet of white, the pollen of tall poplars that 

 surround the place, for the poplar wastes its pollen 

 profuse as any yew. 



The swallows that nest each year in the mill have 

 glued their nests to the locked wheel, and one of the 

 two nests has young. The plaster the swallow 

 makes her nest of and glues to the beams or other 

 woodwork will last a long time. Around the wheel 

 are bits of nests or nests entire which have been there 

 for years. Yet I think a fresh nest is built each year 

 by the barn swallow. 



A WHITETHROAT'S STRATAGEM. 



When I disturbed the sitting whitethroat by the 

 stream, she fluttered softly off her eggs, held in 

 a deep, slight cup of dried grasses, with a few horse- 

 hairs for lining, and uttered no sound. Instead of 

 flying away, she dropped at once among the grasses 

 and dead leaves and brambles, and crept off more 

 like a small mammal than a bird. She threaded her 

 way through the bush that held her treasures and 

 the neighbouring thicket, in and out among the 

 dense undergrowth, till she was lost to view. 



Then she must have found her wings again and 

 flown up into the bushes, for a few minutes later, I 

 saw her working her way back from twig to twig 

 towards the nest. She had found her voice, too. 

 She was uttering the little note of fret and fuss, a 



