hot food are constantly being mixed and carried to them,
without any apparent consciousness on their part of their reciprocal
responsibilities. What I mean to say is that there are no eggs. The
food which they eat resembles Christmas-pudding at the time when it is
stirred, and I have suggested that a sixpence should be concealed in
it every now and then--sixpence being apparently the current price of
an egg--in order to indicate the nature of our hopes.

I have made other valuable suggestions. I have suggested putting an
anthracite stove in their sitting-room, and papering the walls
with illustrations representing various methods of mass production,
ordinary methods having failed. I notice that cabbages are suspended
by a string across the top of the parade-ground in order that the
birds may obtain exercise by springing at them. The cabbages are
eaten, but I do not believe that the birds jump. I believe that they
clamber up the wire with their claws, walk along the tight-rope and
bite the cabbage off with their teeth.

Sometimes, as I think I have mentioned, the one with speckles escapes
into the garden, and I have several times been asked to chase it home.
Nothing makes one look more ridiculous than chasing an independent
maybird of no particular views across an onion bed. The rest of the
animals appear to spend most of their time in walking about the run
with their hands in their pockets looking for things on the ground.

But every now and then one or other of them makes the loud cry which
is usually associated with successful egg-production; the whole
household troops beaming with anticipation along the gravel-path; and
it is then discovered that the Buff has knocked one of the Whites off
her perch, or that one of the Whites has scratched a cinder on which
the Buff had set her eye, or that the Independent member has made a
bitter speech which is deeply resented by the Coalition. But there are
no eggs.

About a week ago the corn which apparently forms a part of the
necessary nourishment of maybirds, and is kept in an outhouse, was
attacked by rats. I was told that I must do something about this. I
buttered some slices of bread with arsenic and laid them down on the
outhouse floor. The rats ate the bread and arsenic and went on with
the corn. Unless a great improvement is manifested in the New Year I
have decided to butter the maybirds with arsenic and place them in the
outhouse too.

EVOE.

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