BIRDS IN A VILLAGE n 



On first coming to the village, when I ran after 

 every nightingale I heard, to get as near him as 

 possible, I was occasionally led by the sound to 

 a cottage, and in some instances I found the 

 singer perched within three or four yards of an 

 open window or door. At my own cottage, when 

 the woman who waited on me shook the break- 

 fast cloth at the front door, the bird that came 

 to pick up the crumbs was the nightingale — not 

 the robin. When by chance he met a sparrow 

 there, he attacked and chased it away. It was 

 a feast of nightingales. An elderly woman of 

 the village explained to me that the nightingales 

 and other small birds were common and tame 

 in the village, because no person disturbed them. 

 I smile now when recording the good old dame's 

 words. 



On my second day at the village it happened 

 to be raining — a warm, mizzling rain without 

 wind — and the nightingales were as vocal as in 

 fine bright weather. I heard one in a narrow 

 lane, and went towards it, treading softly, in 

 order not to scare it away, until I got within 

 eight or ten yards of it, as it sat on a dead pro- 

 jecting twig. This was a twig of a low thorn 



