After a time, when, owing to increasing debility, I was confined moreand more to the village, I began to concentrate my attention on a fewcommon species that were always present, particularly on the threecommonest--rook, daw, and starling; the first two residents, thestarling, a winter visitor from September to April.

In 0ctober, I started feeding the birds at the home where I sometimes was stayingas a guest, throwing the scraps on a lawn at the back which sloped downtowards the estuary. First came all the small birds in the immediateneighbourhood--robin, dunnock, wagtail, chaffinch, throstle, yellowbird,and black and ox-eye tits. Then followed troops of starlings, and soonall the rooks and daws in the village began to look at what was going on andcome too, and this attracted the gulls from the estuary--I wished thatit had drawn the curlews; and all these huge ones were so greedy andbold, so noisy and formidable-looking that the small birds were verydriven out; all except the starlings that came in hungry crowds and weblacketermined to get their share.