66 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE 



I have lingered long over the wryneck, but 

 have still a story to relate of this bird not a 

 fairy tale this time, but true. 



On the border of the village adjoining the 

 wood the side where birds were more abundant, 

 and which consequently had the greatest attrac- 

 tion for me there stands an old picturesque 

 cottage nearly concealed from sight by the hedge 

 in front and closely planted trees clustering round 

 it. On one side was a grass field, on the other 

 an orchard of old cherry, apple, and plum trees, 

 all the property of the old man living in the cot- 

 tage, who was a character in his way; at all events, 

 he had not been fashioned in quite the same 

 mould as the majority of the cottagers about him. 

 They mostly, when past middle life, wore a 

 heavy, dull and somewhat depressed look. This 

 man had a twinkle in his dark-grey eyes, an ex- 

 pression of intelligent curiosity and fellowship; 

 and his full face, bronzed with sixty or sixty-five 

 years' exposure to the weather, was genial, as 

 if the sunshine that had so long beaten on it had 

 not been all used up in painting his skin that rich 

 old- furniture colour, but had, some of it, filtered 

 through the epidermis into the heart to make his 



