Apr. L—Was walking by the creek at Jessfield this morning when my attention was attracted by the strange behaviour of a small bird across the water; from a barbed-wire perch it kept making swoops at the water, striking it with its body (wings fluttering) and then returning to the perch. There is no Kingfisher or other bird of aquatic habit so small as this one, and it was with very natural curiosity that I got it under observation through the field-glasses. It turned out to be a Sparrow hurling itself at the water to pick up some floating food, and keeping itself. "afloat" by fluttering its wings as it struck the water. I have never seen anything like it before, and it just shows what a hungry sparrow will dare to acquire a meal. But as I watched, a loud and raucous voice in the Barrack compound behind me began to state in song that it "could ear the angels singing" which was more than I could do: just then another equally powerful voice began to shout, "Look out, you've dropped it take care you'll lose it " etc. etc. ad lib: this second voice became more and more agonized until I felt sure something serious had happened and began to cross the road in order to see what portion of His Majesty's uniform or equipment was about to be lost or broken: when, suddenly, he who could "ear-the-angels-singing broke off his lullaby and shouted back, "Shur-r-up, I ain't a blinking April fool!" Apparently I was. So I returned hastily to watch my eccentric sparrow... which by then had flown. Dear me! We get no wiser as the years roll by.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.