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Mr. A. Trevor-Battye,



Here though close to the river we are quite away from the

woods; Snipe, Duck and Plovers cross the garden, Dabchicks visit

at night the little pool in the Flamingos’ enclosure, but although

there are many big elm trees about the garden we never have a

Woodpecker there nor a Nuthatch, and the Wryneck is very

seldom heard. While the Great and the Blue Titmouse are

always with us (except in the month of August, when they dis¬

appear with their young till the sunflower seeds are ripe), and

nest in the boxes, the Marsh Tit is very rarely seen in the garden

and the Cole Tit never.


Now for our run of bad luck. We have no rookery in the

garden and we want the Rooks to settle there. In the winter

they would come down close to the window and feed at the birds’

table. This spring, to our great delight, a pair came and built

a nest in the top of the biggest elm a few yards from the

house. The eggs were hatched, the young were being fed, when

everything unaccountably stopped. The old birds gave up com¬

ing and the young ones died.


Once more we were doomed to disappointment. There

are Barn Owls in the thatched roof of the cottages ; we wanted

them near the house. We made an excellent loft for them

under the thatch of the seed-room roof, and fixed up two Owl-

boxes in the elms. A neighbour sent us last year a pair of Barn

Owls, with their two big young ones; the old birds were set free

and went straight off to their home three miles away, the j 7 oung

ones we kept in an aviary. Towards autumn they were liberated,

and fed from the roof of the aviary. They lived partly in the

seed-room loft, partly in one of the boxes in the trees. Thus they

flew at hack for some time, eventually catering entirely for them¬

selves and leaving untouched the food we provided. They

ornamented the tennis lawns with many large castings—always

composed of mice and vole remains. Towards the end of April

and the beginning of May they were very interesting, and for

several days running came out for their evening flight just as we

were going in to dinner. One (perhaps the male bird) always

gave a loud screech as it left the box and then sitting on a dead

branch waited for its companion to join it. They used to beat

the garden and paddocks very regularly each night. They never



