196 Wild Life in a Southern County. 
approach you may sométimes. even. stroke her back 
lightly with your finger. without making her rise. 
They become so accustomed to men constantly in 
and out the sheds as to feel little alarm. Some build 
their nests higher up under the roof-tree. 
To the adjoining rickyard redstarts come every 
summer, building their nests there ; ‘horse-matchers’ 
or stonechats also in summer often visit the rickyard, 
though they do not build in it. Some elm trees 
shade the ricks, and once now and then a wood- 
pigeon settles in them for a little while. The coo of 
the dove may be heard frequently, but she does not 
build very near the house. 
On this farm the rookery is at some distance in 
the meadows, and the rooks rarely come nearer than 
the field just outside the post and rails that enclose 
the rickyard, though they pass over constantly, flying 
low down without fear, unless some one chances just 
then to come out carrying a gun. Then they seem 
seized with an uncontrollable panic, and stop short in 
their career by a violent effort of the wings, to wheel 
off immediately at a tangent. Perhaps no other bird 
shows such evident signs of recognising a gun. Chaf- 
finches, it must not be forgotten, frequent the rick- 
yard in numbers. 
Finally come the rats. Though trapped, shot, and 
ferreted without mercy, the rats insist on a share of 
the good things going. They especially haunt the 
pigsties, and when the pigs are served with their food ~ 
