WILD WALES 283 



quite such vast flocks of widgeon, or of coot, or of gulls, 

 or so large a variety of waterfowl as London. Though 

 you have to go by a street and penetrate iron railings, 

 and mount a bank dotted with artificial shrubs, you will 

 see more wildfowl at Staines and at closer quarters than 

 in the midst of the wildest, or tamest waters of the East 

 or the West. The nature of the lure of London is not 

 easily determined. 



3- 



The owner of the cottage, which has a tiny lawn in 

 front of low windows, considers breakfast a failure if 

 six varieties of bird do not share it. Six is the standard 

 number. The food is not put on a table, but directly 

 on the grass, without adjacent apparatus, so none of the 

 usual favouritism to the tit tribe is vouchsafed, or indeed 

 to birds, for the mice may come if they wish. The normal 

 company at breakfast is that friendliest of garden birds 

 which we libel with the name of sparrow (hedge), a cock 

 chaffinch, blue tits and great tits, robins, and blackbirds. 

 Those harpies, the starlings, do not appear. They are 

 the despair of many who distribute daily largess. I saw 

 them last week on a Wiltshire lawn, where bird feeding 

 is practised on a very lavish scale. They have the habit 

 of the dog, which is the habit of the wolf, and belongs 

 to the herded or flocked animal. The starlings 0^ their 

 food. They exceed the speed limit. Their course is 

 finished in at least a quarter of the time taken by birds 

 of their own size, say, the blackbird, and in a tenth of 

 the time occupied by dunnock or robin. 



The feeding manners of starlings are a mystery in the 

 field, as well as an offence in the garden. Again and 

 again in a cornfield you will find on close inspection that 



