TWO BIRD STORIES.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SnicrAroa."] SIR,—One man's misfortune is frequently another man's opportunity, but it is, I think, somewhat unusual for a bird to profit by the calamity of a cat. This took place in an out- of-the-way village in Dorset, and was told to me the other day. Two Tom cats met in a garden. They could not agree upon some nice point of honour•, and, having decided to fight it out, selected a polyanthus primrose bed as their battlefield. The following morning the primroses were dishevelled, and snowy locks, belonging to one of the combatants, were strewn in handfuls on the ground. A sparrow with a nest to build here saw her opportunity, collected a quantity of fur, and furnished her• one-roomed house with the hair of her family's hereditary foe.
In connexion with this same house I was told this story of a robin. It is a place where birds of all descriptions are always fed and welcomed and encouraged to be tame. During the cold snap, which was all we had that could be dignified by the name of winter, a robin came every night for a week and roosted in a basket on an upper shelf in the scullery. As soon as the door was opened in the morning it flew out, but until the weather became more genial it returned regularly
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