The forgers and furnacemen do not eat much food in the shed during the summer months. The heat of the fires and the fumes from the oil furnaces impair their appetites, and large quantities of bread and other victuals are thrown out in the yard for the rats and birds. Rooks and sparrows are the only regular feathered inhabitants of the yard, if, indeed, the rooks can be so called, for they have their nests a long way off. They merely obtain their food about the yard during the day and go home to bed at night. The sparrows build their nests almost anywhere, though their favourite place seems to be in the sockets made in the walls for containing the lamp brackets. As the lamps are removed during the summer months, the holes afford a convenient resting-place for the ubiquitous _passeres_.
No starlings frequent the yard; they prefer a quieter and more natural habitation. A robin, even, is an unusual visitor, while martins and swallows never visit the precincts of the factory. The sweet _chelidon_--the darling stranger from the far-off shores of the blue Mediterranean--shuns the unearthly noise and smother of the factory altogether; her delight is in places far removed from the whirling of wheels and the chu-chuing of engines.
The rooks seem perfectly inured to the smoke and steam and the life of the factory yard; at all hours of the day they may be seen scavenging around the sheds, picking up any stray morsel that happens to be lying about. Four of these frequent the yard regularly. Summer and winter they are to be seen strutting up and down over the ashes of the track, or perched upon the tops of the high lamps. Once, during a gale, I saw a rook try to alight upon the summit of a lamp, eighty feet high--on the small curved iron stay that crowns the whole like a bow. Although it secured a footing on the top, it could not balance itself to rest there, but was forced to keep its two wings entirely expanded in order to maintain any equilibrium at all. This it did for nearly two minutes, but the force of the wind was so great that it could not keep its balance and was presently blown away. To view it there, with wings outstretched, brought to mind a bird of a much nobler reputation than that of Master Rook; it was worthy of the traditions of the eagle.