March 31.—For many years past I have never, failed to record the arrival of the Swallows during the month of March and my failure to do so this year has been a major disappointment. Year by year I have walked the western country and never failed to herald the earliest arrivals of the spring birds: this year my work has received so many jolts that pleasure has been turned into pain: ill-treatment of Chinese countrymen at, the barriers has spoilt my pleasure in the country so that I can hardly face it: poor, innocent countrymen of any age from twenty to seventy being faced with conditions they have never known before: a man comes to the barriers, is told in a strange language to remove his hat, and does not know what to do. The poor creature feels lost... raises his arms in a gesture of surrender. and gets a crack in the side from a rifle-butt. I all makes me sick and I find it hard to recor my feelings. In the meantime, my count gardener comes in to my house empty-han and tells me that the sentries have taken jis cabbages and lettuces....evidently they hive the same tastes that I have and like their vegetables fresh. Out in the far country I fave wandered unmolested, and watched the pageant of nature go by: the cheerful chirrup of the Bush Warbler who now says, "richeFeuw" instead of "Oh-oh-oh—Richard": the plaintive call of the Wryneck: the drumming pf the Woodpecker: the passive fluttering of tie Cab-page Butterfly in search of cabbages which are not there: the arrival of the first blueottle on my window-pane: the little clouds of midges which show me that full spring is here: the clumps of Violets....the pale Chines¢ and the fully-coloured blooms of the Jay variety all are there: but no Swallows! Ahd I begin io wonder if by some means of bush/telegraphy the birds have sensed that a state of war exists and that their friends the Chinese its are being maltreated. It sounds aba, but all my years of observation lead me to such a conclusion. j
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.