124 BIRDS OF THE COUNTRYSIDE 



seven o'clock in the evening, fluttering and wheeling 

 like pipistrelles. There is a quite steep cloud of them, 

 and when they have exhausted one space, they occupy 

 the next, slipping further and further away with fainter 

 and fainter cries. These evening flights, however, are 

 undertaken for more than daily bread. They are partly 

 for exercise and play, partly for educating the young 

 birds, and are partly a noviciate in sociability and before 

 departure overseas. For migration represents biologic- 

 ally a radical change in the rhythm of bird-life, and 

 needs almost as much preliminary training as a boxing 

 match. 



IV 



I will end this account of the birds of my district 

 by one of those in my garden — ^the ordinary suburban 

 affair, some twenty-five yards long by eight broad, 

 and with no trees in it above a small plum and apple 

 and a sapling mountain-ash. For this garden, like 

 Sergius, I never apologize, for, thanks to the good 

 cheer and accommodation I provide, it is a winter 

 almshouse for eleven regular, (not counting rare visits 

 by other species) different and needy species — sparrow, 

 robin, chaffinch, dunnock, blackbird, starling, blue-tit, 

 oxeye, wren, throstle and mistle-thrush — a good tally 

 for a London garden. 



I have learned a few things by watching these 

 birds which no books have told me. In the first 

 place, it is mythical that sparrows drive away the 

 more delicate species.^ On the contrary, they en- 

 courage them, since the sparrow, however parasitic on 

 man, is perhaps the most incorrigibly wild of all our 

 native birds, and if he relax his cautionary tension 

 in a garden, other birds give a sigh of relief and throw 

 their anxieties to the winds. The sparrow's attitude 

 is a perfect barometer of safety, and I have never 

 known him interfere with the others, in spite of his 

 large numerical superiority. Mr. Hudson gives a 

 desolating account of the Tower sparrows and their 



1 Their appropiiation of the nests of martins is of course 

 different. 



