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you must know that our rooms are on the sixth and top 

 floor of a very high building, and so it was that we 

 happened one day last winter to see a forlorn and, as we 

 suspected, a hungry little pigeon, with its small head 

 dropped on its breast, sitting on the roof which runs at 

 right angles to that above our heads. It was an easy 

 matter from the window to throw crumbs on to the leads, 

 but the bird took fright and disappeared. The next day, 

 however, we saw it again, and with it two others ; and 

 this time, though they ran off a little distance when the 

 window was opened, they returned to eat. In those cold 

 winter days crumbs were evidently scarce in Westminster, 

 and the news of the manna which thus fell in that wilder- 

 ness of roofland spread who knows by what method of 

 communication? among the birds of the vicinity. In a 

 few weeks they had acquired the courage to descend for 

 their meal to our window balconies, but at that time only 

 when the muslin curtains were drawn, and when we were 

 hidden from view. 



Now it happened one day that we saw in a shop a great 

 bin filled with maize and oats, and bearing the alluring 

 sign " Pigeon Mixture." And from that time to this a 

 sackful of this provender so dear to the birds has been 

 delivered at regular intervals at our flat. Perhaps the 

 hall-porters and the lift-men think that we eat it ; they 

 are apparently prepared to believe anything of people who 

 come from the United States, and the more enlightened 

 may suppose that this is the corn of which it is known 

 Americans are fond. In that case the quantity consumed 

 must appear alarmingly great. For now the pigeons have 

 thrown away all pretence at timidity, and, not content 

 with being fed in the early morning, keep within sight 

 all day, and by their patience and their mournful, musical 

 cries persuade us to renew the feast. They no longer 

 require that the curtains should be drawn, or even that 

 the window should be closed, and those who are most 

 devoted follow us from room to room. There is seldom 



