The reports closer to home were even more disturbing. All day long it
would seem that the birds were coming thicker from all quarters.
Doubtless many were going as well as coming, but the mass seemed never to
get less. Each bird seemed to sound some note of fear or anger or
seeking, and the whirring of wings never ceased nor lessened. The air
was full of a muttered throb. No window or barrier could shut out the
sound, till the ears of any listener became dulled by the ceaseless
murmur. So monotonous it was, so cheerless, so disheartening, so
melancholy, that all longed, but in vain, for any variety, no matter how
terrible it might be.

The second morning the reports from all the districts round were more
alarming than ever. Farmers began to dread the coming of winter as they
saw the dwindling of the timely fruitfulness of the earth. And as yet it
was only a warning of evil, not the evil accomplished; the ground began
to look bare whenever some passing sound temporarily frightened the
birds.

Edgar Caswall tortured his brain for a long time unavailingly, to think
of some means of getting rid of what he, as well as his neighbours, had
come to regard as a plague of birds. At last he recalled a circumstance
which promised a solution of the difficulty. The experience was of some
years ago in China, far up-country, towards the head-waters of the Yang-
tze-kiang, where the smaller tributaries spread out in a sort of natural
irrigation scheme to supply the wilderness of paddy-fields. It was at
the time of the ripening rice, and the myriads of birds which came to
feed on the coming crop was a serious menace, not only to the district,
but to the country at large. The farmers, who were more or less
afflicted with the same trouble every season, knew how to deal with it.