Early in May the winter congregation breaks up, the cliff-breeders going back to the rocks and the village birds to their chimneys, where they presently set about relining their old nests. There are plenty of places for all, since there are chimneys in almost every cottage where fires are never lighted, and as ventilation is not wanted in bedrooms the birds are allowed to bring in more materials each year, until the whole flue is filled up. Year by year the materials brought in, sink lower and lower until they rest on the closed iron register and change in time to a solid brown mould. Thus, however long-lived a daw may be--and there are probably more centenarians among the daws than among the human inhabitants of the villages--it is a rare thing for one to be disturbed in his tenancy. In the cottage opposite the one I was staying in, its owner, an old woman who had lived in it all her life, had recently died, aged eighty-seven. She was very feeble at the last, and one cold day when she could not leave her bed, the extraordinary idea occurred to some one of her people that it might be a good thing to light a fire in her room. The fireplace was examined and was found to have no flue, or that the flue had been filled with earth or cement. The village builder was called in, and with the aid of a man on the roof and poles and various implements he succeeded in extracting two or three barrow-loads of hard earth which had no doubt once been sticks, centuries ago, as the building was very ancient. No one had remembered that the daws had always occupied the same chimney; the old dame herself had seen them going in and out of it from her childhood, and her end was probably hastened by the disturbance made in cleaning it. Now she is gone the daws here are in possession of it once more. All through the month of May daws were to be seen about the village, dropping from time to time upon the chimney-pots where they had their nests and occasionally bringing some slight materials to form a new lining, but it was very rare to see one with a stick in his beak. The flues were already full of old sticks and no more were wanted. It was amusing to see a bird flying about, suddenly tumble out of the air on to a chimneypot, then with tail tipped up and wings closed, dive into the cavity below. One wondered how the young birds would be got out!