iz6 MAY 



woven, may be singularly obvious when built in a thorn 

 hedge or bush ; but on the more distinctive site, the 

 bough of some lichened tree, they may appear as a mere 

 gnarl or continuation of the bark. One can find less 

 reason for the lovely lichen covering of the long-tailed 

 tit s, almost always woven among the twigs of briar, 

 thorn or gorse. But after all, bird or tat, not man, is 

 the enemy against whom precautions are more instinc 

 tively taken ; and the tits are more seldom ravaged than 

 either golden-crested wrens, sometimes harried by 

 sparrows or chaffinches, who often suffer from the 

 owls. 



We may provide the birds of our gardens with nesting 

 materials. It is indeed an amusing aid to observation to 

 hang up supplies of moss, wool, coco-nut fibres, horse 

 hair, or such material. It will be freely taken ; but the 

 swallow is the only bird within my knowledge that will 

 welcome direct assistance in making up the nest. But 

 then it is one of the very few birds that uses the same 

 nest both for successive broods (occasionally as un 

 believably many as four) as well as in successive years if 

 any of the structure remains. 



2. 



At the edge of the Devil s Dyke is a vanished village 

 built by the Belgians rather more than 2,000 years ago. 

 Not so many remnants remain as of that Saxon village 

 lately unearthed on the hill behind Penzance, but enough 

 to prove its village nature. It lies alongside two parallel 

 trenches, some twenty feet deep and fifty feet across the 

 top. They have been modernised by the latest diggers 

 to the disappointment cf a local archaeologist who dated 

 them at about 2,500 B.C. The attraction of these dykes 

 appeals to the winter pedestrian in January, but they are 



