DAWS IN THE WEST COUNTRY 79 



it was a new and delightful dish invented for the 

 benefit of the blue tits, and from that time they 

 were at it at all hours, coming and going from 

 morning till night. There were six of them, 

 and occasionally they were all there at once, each 

 one anxious to secure a place, and never able 

 when he got one to keep it longer than three or 

 four seconds at a time. Looking upon them 

 from an upper window, as they perched against 

 and flitted round and round the suspended 

 cocoa-nut, they looked Uke a gathering of very 

 large pale-blue flies flitting round and feeding 

 on a very big medlar. 



No doubt the sparrow is the most abundant 

 species in Bath — I have got into a habit of not 

 noticing that bird, and it is as if I did not see 

 him ; but after him the starling is undoubtedly 

 the most numerous. He is, we know, increasing 

 everywhere, but in no other town in England 

 have I found him in such numbers. He is seen 

 in flocks of a dozen to half a hundred, busily 

 searching for grubs on every lawn and green 

 place in and round the town, and if you go up 

 to some elevated spot so as to look down upon 

 Bath, you will see flocks of starlings arriving and 



