68 BIRDS AND MAN 



For in this building — not viewed as in a photo- 

 graph or picture, nor through the eye of the 

 mere architect or archseologist, who sees the 

 gem but not the setting — nature and man 

 appear to have worked together more harmoni- 

 ously than in others. 



But it is hard to imagine a birdless Wells. 

 The hiUs, beautiful with trees and grass and 

 flowers, come down to it; cattle graze on their 

 slopes ; the peewit has its nest in their stony 

 places, and the kestrel with quick-beating wings 

 hangs motionless overhead. Nature is round it, 

 breathing upon and touching it caressingly on 

 every side ; flowing through it hke the waters 

 that gave it its name in olden days, that stiU 

 gush with noise and foam from the everlasting 

 rock, to send their crystal currents along the 

 streets. And with nature, in and around the 

 rustic viUage-like city, live the birds. The green 

 woodpecker laughs aloud from the group of old 

 cedars and pines, hard by the cathedral close — 

 you will not hear that woodland sound in any 

 other city in the kingdom ; and the rooks caw 

 aU day from the rookery in the old elms that 

 grow at the side of the palace moat. But the 



