320 Wild Life in a Southern County. 
it easily to another leaf. There he rolled the fly 
round, snipped off the head, which dropped, and 
devoured the internal part; but slipped again and 
recovered himself on a third leaf, and as it were picked 
the remaining small portion. What had been a great 
insect had almost disappeared in a few minutes. 
After the arrival of the fieldfares the days seem 
to rapidly shorten, till towards the end of December 
the cocks, reversing their usual practice, crow in the 
evening, hours before midnight. The cockcrow is 
usually associated with the dawn, and the change of 
habit just when the nights are longest is interesting. 
Birds have a Feng-shui of their own—an unwritten 
and occult science of the healthy and unhealthy places 
of residence—and seem to select localities in accord- 
ance with the laws of this magical interpretation of 
nature. The sparrows, by preference, choose the 
southern side of a house for their nests. This is very 
noticeable on old thatched houses, where one slope of 
the roof happens to face the north and another the 
south. On the north side the thatch has been known 
to last thirty years without renewal—it decays so 
slowly. The moss, however, grows thickly on that 
side, and if not removed would completely cover it. 
Moss prefers the shade ; and so in the woodlands the 
meadows on the north or shady side of the copses 
are often quite overgrown with moss, which is pleasant 
to walk on, but destroys the herbage. But on the 
south side of the roof, the rain coming from that 
