June 9—Birds seem to be natural imperialists with very strong views concerning territory. My garden birds, for example, have always regarded not only the little piece of ground within my fences, but also a quite considerable strip of country around' the garden, as being within their terrain: and they are prepared to fight for it against all comers....even though humans do have the nerve to build new houses and make new gardens. Hence the following story.
'A newly built house behind my garden has a three-piece chimney-stack with a flat concrete cover (Chinese style) making a' perfect avian aerodrome: our birds seldom use it, but that makes no difference to their principles. Yesterday a Heron dropped out of the sky and landed on that little sanctuary exactly like a parachutist....great wide wings held high over his head. Landing in porte po he stretched out his long neck in the "alert" attitude:
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.