SEPTEMBER 



A. Martin s Colony A. Drougfrt-Titne Diviner A. Seaside 

 *Links The Daddy Unharvested Honey Queen Elizabeth s 

 Perquisite The Vanished Sheaf 



I. 



5LONGSIDE the Mimram, a merry little inland 

 \ tributary at two removes from the Thames, is a 

 ^farmhouse that should be famous among students 

 of birds. One side of the building is lower than the 

 dwelling-house proper and the bricks under the eaves are 

 bracketed : every other one projects, leaving an ideal 

 recess, as the architect may have realised, for smaller 

 houses than he himself was building. Every single space 

 is this year occupied by martins ; and even so, their 

 company is not satisfied by the accommodation : it is 

 insufficient ; there is not room for all the applicants of 

 this most gregarious breed, so a number have built 

 underneath the other nests. Such groups of nests give 

 the impression of flats or semi-detached houses in a verti 

 cal plane. This bit of wall, this ideal site, is fourteen 

 yards in length and the nests on it, a few unoccupied 

 owing to accidents, number exactly sixty-seven. The 

 colony is much the biggest that I have ever seen and in 

 some of its aspects the most curious. You could watch 

 it for days and continue to make quaint discoveries. 



Though the birds are in some regards a nuisance the 

 farmer and his family delight in the invasion. The size 

 of the colony is proclaimed by the continuous chatter 

 and by the shimmer of wings* Most of the nests hold 



2X1 



