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?
