Ladyday to Whitsunday 
had to hearken to a sermon on being kind to the birds. Is 
it inherent in small boys to rifle nests, I wonder ? 
I have heard that in some parts of Scotland the Wren 
was long thought to be the wife of the Robin, which may 
have come from the old nursery rhyme of Cock Robin and 
Jenny Wren. There is also a quaint Scotch curse on birds- 
nesting : 
Malisons, malisons, mair than ten, 
That harry our Ladye of Heaven’s hen. 
I do like Kingsley’s song about the wrens so much — 
“ Juventus Mundi ” — about the poor little Arab children who 
were carried off by the slave-traders and ill-treated till they 
died and were changed into wrens. 
This place seems a very Paradise of Birds. “ God’s Poets 
hid in foliage green,” the air resounds with rival songs all day. 
Our birds are so fearless and bold, they build anywhere 
close to the paths. A nest of young Sparrows is in a low 
fir, quite close to the Church Walk, and they do not seem 
in the least perturbed when we stop as we go by and look 
at them all squeezed up close together in the nest. In the 
thickly matted rhododendrons there is a nest of Green- 
finches, and if one stops to look at them, they all open 
their mouths simultaneously. I think some day I shall put 
in some bread. “Green linties ” is a name for them I rather 
like. There is a suspicion a pair of Brown Owls have a 
nest, either in the big variegated holly or in a beech close 
by the house, since their hooting sounds quite near at 
night. 
The evenings are so light now, at 7 p.m. one scarcely 
needs a lamp. David went out fishing after dinner and 
actually caught some trout. 
May 30. — The first bits of syringa flower were found 
to-day in a sheltered nook ; very shortly the bushes will be 
white. White Pipe-tree is a nice old name for this pretty 
tree. . . . But I never saw the syringa in full flower. 
Circumstances uprooted me the old Cabbage ; and my Roses 
and Lilies bloomed for others that year. 
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