birds which Mr. Kerr is keeping out at Jesslicld (well, my dear, I hardly like to tell you about them) is_ they have bright red bills and Jegs to match, brilliant blue feathers with sha les of lilac pale violet (fancy that now!) deathers on the crown lipped with white spots All down their swishy: tate, end! ey. sing and fall most. melodicsly quite unlike their Felatives the Pleas and ie' Cyanopiees "Out in the Hongkong hills, which is their typical home hey are one of the most beautital things im aginable and T really do. not know how: they ever got to Jessfield. even though Mr. La Touche says their habitat includes the Yangtze Valley. Their true name hate to say it) is, Urocissa eruthrorhyncha erythrorhyncha, snappy little name. which any bird might "be proud of and th ere they are. labelled with the name of Pica pica sericea, None of us are amused, Fi on you, all you Municipal Coun-T shall bring this up at the next Ratepayers' Meeting "and it will make a nice change from that stupid annual wrangle about the orchestra, Dec. &—Stlence is golden, said an adage of my ly youth, and I often think this idea come' down the ages to us from old lancer who wrote something to the effect that, "the first virtue, my son, if thou wilt learn' is to restrain and keep well thy tongue." Perhaps he right, but 1 am left with an uncomfortable feeling that "if we: all kept quiet and did not stand up for ours selves we should never get anywhere. Taking, one's ideas from Nature. it at once becomes obvious that only in the Toneliest and most. dismal places is there complete silence...... golden, if you like for a little time, but very! wearisome if it continues for long. thoughts came to me this morning when Such walked in my garde mand realized that it was never silent: Tam not writing of dreadful traMlc noises, the shouting of passing humanity, or all those hundred-and-one noises which are disturbance to quiet thought 1 am thinking lof all those tiny little noises whi ich start when Hight first comes and continue until the sun /goes down. The May igpies and Shrikes start it with the frst streak of daylight. ud if any-jone tells me that birds do not talk to oneanother, T shall refuse to believe him. When T into'
verandah there is a white of wings and the sparrows begin to chatter: the Blackbird comes Sliding across the lawn and gives his alarm cry: the sentinel Magpies up in the trees give monitory Zaak-zaaks": Bulbuls in shrub and tree gurgle to one another and seem to whisper, "look out! the old man is coming":
band Azure-wings hidden in the Willows: give hunting cries such as ""Yoicks" and the tiny Titmice squeak as they leave their immediate hunt for hid iden peanuts: it is all very: Pleasant to feel that one's Presence means 50, much to so man} wild creatures, Yes! even silence fs golden T feel that T prefer the silver tongues of the birds, December 10—The wind whistled down chimney last night and gave me or a lot of queer much so that 1 looked up' to see if anyone could fell_me just why the wind whistles, and What it is that starts it.
The obliging Mr. Webster tells me that it is, "ai artificially put in motion by any force or action." Isn't that grand? Here with just an ordinary enquiring mind and I cannot get a better definition than that My other friend the Eneye. Brit, refers me to happens. T think of the Prophet Ezekiel saying, winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain "Come from the four that they may live OOKXVI—9): think "of the winds blowing rain the four points of the discover. all those fair Tangs ™e, hips We are squabbling today: 1 think which called god of the wind, Aeolus, ang. qi! David hanging his harp up over his"4, RiNR that the wind could' play it: T think ey "i! musie in the world which is controlled ty. the pipe-organs of the great muss" brass and wind instruments of the reheat? the' gypsy, with hip concertina and ne "sh lad with his mouth-organ playing the mack'? Watk (and that wont a bit of thinking mee tout which have shaped our world, Wrecked sis ander "Sa Mesh Beet il rg, Es, eon the wee of Baropens sceaeeen ite and ocelSrondesst sil wind (oq A because I have recently had a. wireless installed above my roof, which causes th to whistle down my chimney. And beegwas last haggis T ate disagreed with me,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.