Birds of an Oxford College 



THERE are few hours of the day, and fewer still of a 

 brief midsummer night, when some sign of the bird 

 life that abounds in the woods and river meadows 

 about Oxford cannot be seen or heard in a college 

 quadrangle. The birds penetrate to the very 

 shadow of St. Mary's spire, following the willows 

 among the stream-sides, or passing on from one 

 garden to another ; and although many cling to the 

 leafier gardens, with their quiet shades and ancient 

 timber, there are a few which do not shrink from 

 settling and bringing up their young among the walls 

 of gravel quadrangles, or where the scanty verdure 

 of a few trees or a screen of bushes relieves the grey- 

 ness of the stone. Even in mid-November, when 

 the blood-red sheets of Virginian creeper are mingled 

 with thin streaks and stains of early snow, many of 

 the birds of the quadrangle can be seen daily about 

 the buildings. But it is in the eight weeks of the 

 summer term, when the human life of Oxford is 

 fullest of gaiety and vigour, that they are continually 

 busy about their secret nesting-places, and add an 

 under-current of resurgent activity to the crannies 

 of the time-washed stones. 



When term begins in mid-April the sudden in- 

 cursion of life overtakes the jackdaws in the delicate 

 business of nest-building. Though the jackdaw 



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