272 THE LAND'S END 



band standing silent by listening with amused con- 

 tempt to the dispute ; for he too had been a boy, and 

 was not the harrying of birds a boy's proper pastime ? 

 But she was one of the few who made it possible for 

 me to live with and not hate my fellow-creatures 

 even in these habitations of cruelty. 



In conclusion of this chapter I will relate two other 

 little incidents of this kind which show that the 

 spirit of mercy is not wholly dead. A pair of pied 

 wagtails were constantly seen at a stone quarry near 

 a village I stayed at, and as they appeared very 

 tame I spoke to the quarrymen about them. They 

 said the birds had lived there, winter and summer, 

 five years, and bred every spring in a hole among the 

 stones at the side of the quarry. They were as tame 

 as chickens and came for crumbs every day at dinner 

 time, and when it was raining and the men had to 

 take shelter in their little stone hut inside the quarry, 

 the wagtails, or tinners as they are called in West 

 Cornwall, would run in and feed at their feet. 



On my return, in the spring of 1907, to this place 

 I found a pair of wheatears in possession ; they had 

 fought the wagtails and driven them away and made 

 their nest in the same place. The same kindly pro- 

 tection was given to them as to the old favourites, 

 though they never became so tame ; and I saw the 

 young safely brought off. 



We have seen in a former chapter that the robin is 

 somewhat of a sacred bird, or at all events that the 

 feeling in its favour, superstitious or not, is so general 

 that even in the darkest part of the country the bird 



