Gouged-out eyes of lapwings and other "easy" birds
(I had not yet reached the arduous owl-or-titmouse stage of the
profession) lay about in sanguinary morsels, while the floor was
ankle-deep in feathers, and tables strewn with tweezers, lancets,
arsenical paste, corrosive sublimate and other paraphernalia of the
trade. The butler had to be furiously tipped.
There were large grounds belonging to this estate, fields and woodlands
once green, then blackened with soot, and now cut up into allotments and
built over. Here, ever since men could remember - certainly since the
place had come into the possession of the never-to-be-forgotten Mr.
Edward T. - a kingfisher had dwelt by a little streamlet of artificial
origin which supported a few withered minnows and sticklebacks and dace.
This kingfisher was one of the sights of the domain. Visitors were taken
to see it. The bird, though sometimes coy, was generally on view.
Nevertheless it was an extremely prudent old kingfisher; to my infinite
annoyance, I never succeeded in destroying it. Nor did I even find its
nest, an additional source of grief. Lancashire naturalists may be
interested to know that this bird was still on the spot in the 'eighties
(I have the exact date somewhere [25]) - surely a noteworthy state of
affairs, so near the heart of a smoky town like Manchester.
Later on I learnt to slay kingfishers - the first victim falling to my
gun on a day of rain, as it darted across a field to avoid the windings
of a brook. I also became a specialist at finding their nests. Birds are
so conservative! They are at your mercy, if you care to study their
habits. The golden-crested wren builds a nest which is almost invisible;
once you have mastered the trick, no gold-crest is safe. I am sorry,
now, for all those plundered gold-crests' eggs. And the rarer ones - the
grey shrike, that buzzard of the cliff (the most perilous scramble of
all my life), the crested titmouse, the serin finch on the apple tree,
that first icterine warbler whose five eggs, blotched with purple and
quite unfamiliar at the time, gave me such a thrill of joy that I nearly
lost my foothold on the swerving alder branch - -
At this point, my meditations were suddenly interrupted by a vigorous
grunt or snort; a snort that would have done credit to an enraged tapir.
My friend awoke, refreshed. He rubbed his eyes, and looked round.
"I remember!" he began, sitting up. "I remember everything. Are you
feeling better? I hope so. Yes. Exactly. Where were we? An
injunction - what did you say?"
At it again!
"I said it was the drawback of old people that they never know when they
have had enough of an argument."
"But what is an injunction?"
"How many more times do you wish me to make that clear?
