Jon, S—Reading an English magazine today I received a distinct rat-tat from the past In a letter with the heading "A. Unique Accident" according to this letter' the writer had observed a dead sparrow hanging outside u swallows nest, and had the nest cut down to find out how all happened: the sparrow was caught by the neck in a noose of fine gut which had been the nest Lining (or possibly to bind the pellets of the nest-wall together); this had become loosened by sparrows raiding the nest, tangled itself into a noose, and foally sparrows as stated. That the death of a bird by such means. is not quite unique will be shown by the aforementioned. "ratstat" from a distant past, the ch our eaves, and their arrival was looked forward to by all the family, however young, though T cannot. ber just why We were so glad to did we really like the birds or did we regard them merely og another milestone nearer t0 the summer holidays? However this may be, our youthful horror may be imagined when we found one day a swallow hanging dead beneath its nest (an elder brother claimed to have seen the death struggles—but he way a specialist In all horrors). Our interest in the dead bird grew to such an extent that it became a "ghost story" 4n the family and we claimed that we could seo the white shining ghost of the departed bird at night.
the Gnally my father had to get a ladder and cut the remains down, It was then found that the unfortunate bird had been hanged by a horsehair, probably loosened by sparrows in winter, precisely the same way as the guilty sparrow was hanged in the story T have just read. Who was It said "there ig nothing new except' what has been forgotten?"—re.w,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.