340



Miss A. Hutchinson,



in fat folds to the floor, provide interesting' nooks for a sparrow far

from home. A newspaper thrown on the table and forming a tunnel

is a thing to be looked into very carefully, and native caution causes

much time to be wasted before the exploration is complete. Not

that he is afraid ! — but it is all part of the game, and part too of the

morning curriculum, which includes surreptitious dashes at the fiend

in the looking glass, hasty return trips to my shoulder, and the

invariable unprovoked attacks upon his master.


In the evenings, if we are playing piquet, he sits on my wrist

and scrambles up and down it to keep his balance, with occasional

excursions on to the table, and possibly a sudden dive at his enemy’s

fingers. Sometimes an annoying interest in the cards themselves

is displayed. Shuffling always makes him swear. If there is one

thing “ Winkie ” hates above all others, it is to be left alone. He is

discourteous enough to consider his master’s presence as ‘ non est,’

and if I can get to the door unnoticed (which rarely happens), he

beats up and down it with much flapping of wings until I return.


But “Winkie” at his very nicest is “ Winkie ” asleep, his

cage turned to the wall; and in answer to my voice, and no other,

there comes the faintest far off little whimper of content, like a dog

whining under his breath.



A BIRD YARN FROM THE SEA


B.v Miss A. HUTCHINSON.


On the 6th January of this year 1913, I sailed from Naples

to Natal, South Africa, via the East Coast; a far more interesting

route than from Southampton round the Cape, for, as the ship keeps

fairly near land most of the way, the chance of seeing something of

the tropical bird-life both of the sea and land, is much greater than

when travelling right out at sea.


All through the Suez Canal we were followed by small white

and brownish gulls, which seemed to me to be exactly like the pretty

little Mouettes (as the Swiss call them) which haunt the Lake of

Geneva all the summer and winter, but, with the exception of a few

which remain all the year, migrate somewhere else to nest. I should

so much like to know where they go, but have never found anybody



