62 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE 



instantaneous and instinctive display of hypocrisy 

 was highly entertaining, and would have made me 

 laugh if it had not been for the serious purpose I 

 had in my mind* " Now, look here/' I said, " I 

 know what you are after, so it's no use pretending 

 that you are walking about and seeing nothing in 

 particular, YouVe been watching the young tits. 

 Well, I've been watching them too, and waiting to 

 see them fly. I daresay they will be out by to-morrow 

 or the next day, and I hope you little fellows won't 

 try to drag them out before then/' 



They at once protested that they had no such 

 intention. They said that they never robbed birds' 

 nests ; that there were several nests at home in the 

 garden and orchard, one of a nightingale with three 

 eggs in it, but that they never took an egg. But some 

 of the boys they knew, they said, took all the eggs 

 they found ; and there was one boy who got into 

 every orchard and garden in the place, who was so 

 sharp that few nests escaped him, and every nest 

 he found he destroyed, breaking the eggs if there 

 were any, and if there were young birds killing them. 



Not, perhaps, without first mutilating them, I 

 thought ; for I know something of this kind of young 

 " human devil," to use the phrase which Canon 

 Wilberforce has made so famous in another con- 

 nexion* Later on I heard much more about the 

 exploits of this champion bird-destroyer of the 



