30 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE 



be better to preserve the beautiful things we possess. 

 Half a century before the author of Wild Life in 

 a Southern County amused himself by carrying a 

 gun to shoot kingfishers, the inhabitants of that 

 same county of Wiltshire were bathed in tears — 

 so I read in an old Salisbury newspaper — at the 

 tragic death of a young gentleman of great dis- 

 tinction, great social charm, great promise. He was 

 out shooting swallows with a friend who, firing at 

 a passing swallow, had the misfortune to shoot and 

 kill him. 



At the present time when gentlemen practise a 

 little at flying birds to get their hand in before the 

 first of September, they shoot sparrows as a rule, 

 or if they shoot swallows, which afford them better 

 practice, they do not say anything about it. 



IV 



Where the stream broadened and mixed with the 

 river there existed a dense and extensive rush-bed — 

 an island of rushes separated by a deep channel 

 some twelve or fourteen yards in width from the 

 bank. This was a favourite nesting-place of the 

 sedge-warblers ; occasionally as many as a doisen 

 birds could be heard singing at the same time, 



