VII 
MY NEIGHBOUR’S BIRD STORIES 
WE sometimes make mistakes, and I certainly 
made one about my neighbour over the way, Mr. 
Redburn, when I formed the conclusion that I 
had no use for him. For I was just then birding 
in an east-coast village, and when engaged on that 
business I look for some interest in the subject 
which absorbs me, some bird-lore in those I meet 
and converse with. If they are entirely without it, 
they are negligible persons; and Mr. Redburn, a 
retired bank manager and a widower, living alone 
in a house opposite my lodgings, fell quite naturally 
into this category. A kindly man with friendly 
feelings towards a stranger, one it was pleasant 
to talk with, but unfortunately he knew nothing 
about birds. 
One day we met a mile from the village, he out 
for a constitutional, and I returning from a prowl; 
and as he seemed inclined to have a talk, we sat 
down on a green bank at the roadside and got out 
our pipes. 
“You are always after birds,” he said, “and I 
know so little about them!” Then to prove how 
ao 
