54 
BIRDS IN A VILLAGE. 
laugh if it had not been for the serious purpose I 
had in my mind. " Now, look here," I said, " I 
know what you are after, so it's no use pretending 
that you are walking about and seeing nothing in 
particular. You've been watching the young tits. 
Well, I've been watching them too, and waiting to 
see them fly. I dare say they will be out by to- 
morrow or the next day, and I hope you little 
fellows won't try to drag them out before then." 
They at once protested that they had no such 
intention. They said that they never robbed birds'- 
nests ; that there were several nests at home in the 
o^arden and orchard, one of a nio-htino-ale with three 
eggs in it, but that they never took an egg. But 
some of the boys they knew, they said, took all the 
eggs they found ; and there was one boy who got 
into every orchard and garden in the place, who 
was so sharp that few nests escaped him, and ever}' 
nest he found he destroyed, breaking the eggs if 
there were any, and if there were young birds 
killing them. 
Not, perhaps, without first torturing them, I 
thought ; for I know something of this kind of 
young " inhuman devil," to use the phrase which 
Canon Wilberforce has made so famous in another 
connection. Later on I heard much more about 
the exploits of this champion bird-destroyer of the 
village from (strange to say) a bird-catcher by 
