previously covered yourself with some adhesive matter. In this position you should wait until as many Bullfinches as you want have settled on your clothes and stuck there; then climb down from the tree and have them scraped off into a large cage.

BARN OWL.—This bird invariably builds its nest in empty houses. There will be no nests this year.

STARLING.—Threepence was placed on the head of this destructive bird last year in many parts of England. The old way was to put salt on its tail.

BLUE TITMOUSE.—The nest of this active little bird is often situated in most extraordinary places. It is frequently found inside village pumps, and in consequence is much persecuted by local milkmen. It is feared that unless The Daily Mail can be persuaded to take up the cause of this unfortunate bird it will soon be faced with extermination.

ROOK.—The chief difference between this bird and the Crow is found in the way in which its name is spelt.

THRUSH.—See THROSTLE.

SONGS OF SIMLA.

II.—SIMLA SOUNDS.

WAITING FOR THE SPARK.

(With thanks to the London Telephone Directory.)

I doubt if you have ever taken the book seriously, dear reader (if any). You dip into it for a moment, choose a suitable quotation and scribble it down with a blunt pencil on your blotting-pad; then you wind the lanyard of the listening-box round your neck and start talking to the germ-collector in that quiet self-assured voice which you believe spells business success. Then you find you have got on to the Institute of Umbrella-Fanciers instead of the Incorporated Association of Fly-Swatters, which you wanted, and have to begin all over again. But that is not the way to treat literature.

In calm hours of reflection, rather, when the mellow sunlight streams into the room and, instead of the dull gray buildings opposite, you catch a mental glimpse of green tree-tops waving in the wind, and hear, above the rumbling of the busy 'buses, the buzzes ... the bumbling ... what I mean to say is you ought to sit down calmly and read the book from cover to cover, as I am doing now.

For it isn't like a mere Street Directory, which puts all the plot into watertight compartments, and where possibly all the people in Azalea Terrace know each other by sight, even across the gap where it says:—

Here begins Aspidistra Avenue, like the