In October, I started feeding the birds at the house where I was staying as a guest, throwing the scraps on a lawn at the back which sloped down towards the estuary. First came all the small birds in the immediate neighbourhood--robin, dunnock, wagtail, chaffinch, throstle, blackbird, and blue and ox-eye tits. Then followed troops of starlings, and soon all the rooks and daws in the village began to see what was going on and come too, and this attracted the gulls from the estuary--I wished that it had drawn the curlews; and all these big ones were so greedy and bold, so noisy and formidable-looking that the small birds were quite driven out; all except the starlings that came in hungry crowds and were determined to get their share. At the beginning of December I had to move to a nursing-home at the Convent of the Sisters of the Cross at the adjacent village of Hayle, just across the estuary. The Convent buildings and grounds and gardens are fortunately outside the ugly village, and my room had an exceptionally big window occupying almost the whole wall on one side, with an outlook to the south over the green fields and moors towards Helston. An ideal sick-room for a man who can't be happy without the company of birds, and here, even when lying on my bed before I was able to sit or stand by the window, a large portion of the sky, rainy or blue, was visible, and rooks and daws and gulls and troops of starlings, and the curlews from the river, were seen coming and going all day long. But it was much better when I was able to go to the window, since now, by feeding them, I could draw the birds to me. I fed them on a green field beneath my window, where the Convent milch-cows were accustomed to graze for some hours each day. All through the winter there was grass for them, and I was glad to have them there, as the cow is my favourite beast, and it was also pleasant to see the wintering starlings consorting with them, clustering about their noses, just as they do in the pasture lands in summer time. But I found it best to feed the birds when the cows were not there, on account of the behaviour of one of them, a young animal who had not yet been sobered by having a calf of her own. She was a frivolous young thing and when tired of feeding, she would start teasing the old cows, pushing them with her horns, then flinging up her hind legs to challenge them to a romp. The sight of a crowd of birds under my window would bring her at a gallop to the spot to find out what all the fuss was about, and the birds would be driven off.