HOMES FOR WILD BIRDS 293 



made, and these 'eligible building sites' need no 

 advertisements to secure tenants for the ground land- 

 lord. Charles Waterton was perhaps the most suc- 

 cessful founder of bird colonies ever known, and 

 made Walton Hall a real paradise for his favourite 

 tenants. He had a special tower, so built that no 

 rat could gain access to it, for the starlings ; and 

 many pairs of owls, both brown and white, took 

 possession of the holes which he excavated for them 

 in the elm trees. Whenever he saw one of the 

 large bracket fungi growing from the stem of a tree, 

 the first sign that the centre of the trunk has begun 

 to decay, he used with mallet and chisel to cut a 

 circular opening, and scoop out a cavity in the half- 

 rotten wood within. This made a dry and warm 

 nesting-place which no owl could resist, and a pair 

 used nearly always to occupy it before a year had 

 passed. No bird was ever killed in the park, and 

 hawks and owls nested in the same trees with stock- 

 doves and woodpigeons. No doubt the hawks some- 

 times killed their neighbours ; but hawks, as St John 

 rightly observed, seldom interfere with birds nesting 

 close to their own eyrie, though ruthlessly destroying 

 the same species at a little distance. But all ground 

 vermin, especially rats, were exterminated by Water- 

 ton, who built a high wall round his park to keep 

 them out, paying for it by the wine he did not drink. 



