76 BIRDS AND MAN 



most brilliant rainbow, on one side streaming 

 athwart the green hiU and resting on the centre 

 of the town, so that the high, old, richly decorated 

 Abbey Church was seen through a band of green 

 and violet mist. That storm and that rainbow, 

 seen by chance, gave a pecuUar grace and glory 

 to Bath, and the bright, unfading picture it left in 

 memory has perhaps become too much associated 

 in my mind with the thought of Bath, and has 

 given me an exaggerated idea of its charm. 



When staying in Bath in the winter of 1898-9 

 I saw a good deal of bird life even in the heart of 

 the town. At the back of the house I lodged in, 

 in New King Street, within four minutes' walk of 

 the Pump Room, there was a strip of ground 

 called a garden, but with no plants except a few 

 dead stalks and stumps and two small leafless 

 trees. Clothes-lines were hung there, and the 

 ground was httered with old bricks and rubbish, 

 and at the far end of the strip there was a fowl- 

 house with fowls in it, a small shed, and a wood- 

 pile. Yet to this unpromising - looking spot 

 came a considerable variety of birds. Starhngs, 

 sparrows, and chaffinches were the most numerous, 

 while the blackbird, thrush, robin, hedge-sparrow 



