PIONEERS OF SPRING. 51 
That night, I fancy, it was back in France, 
or, it may be, the Channel Islands, sheltering 
somewhere against a bitter east wind, and 
seeking insects on wing as best it could. But 
a week later, in a mild south wind, it again 
appeared, this time about an old, crumbling 
wall, where the poor little birds, apparently 
knowing no better, were trying to drive tunnels 
in the mortar between the stones. Heaven 
knows how their tiny beaks contrived to make 
even the shallow saucers which they did in the 
hard stuff ! 
Followed then two weeks of cold, and the 
brave little flock again vanished; but this 
time they were not gone. Nobody, however, 
noticed the mouse-like, silent little birds 
which hawked up and down a certain warm 
stream, roosting at night in the willow-beds. 
Then, on a bright and blustering morning, 
the 10.45 a.m. London ‘up,’ rushing through 
a cutting at fifty miles an hour, disturbed a 
flock of seven sand-martins burrowing in the 
sandy bank. They had made three tunnels, 
slanting upwards, some six inches long, and 
the sparrows from the neighbouring farm 
watched those tunnels with envious eyes. 
Thus, therefore, it happened that when the 
flock returned from their fright of the train, a 
sparrow’s beak stuck out of each hole, and 
