I hope you have noticed the correspondence in The Times on Wild Birds and Fruit Growers, and that the latter contemplate invoking the aid of the Board of Agriculture in exterminating the former.
The birds here increase as the weather gets colder. Geese, duck and teal are to be seen flighting every day. We shot a pochard on Tuesday and a plover yesterday. Large flocks of night-herons visit the flood-lands and rooks have become common. White wagtails appeared in great numbers a few weeks ago, and sand-grouse are reported in vast numbers further north.
As there is no news, perhaps it would interest you to know, how we live in these billets.
The house is very convenient on the whole, though cold, as there is no glass in the large windows and the prevailing N.W. wind blows clean through, and there are no fire-places.
As to our mode of existence, my day is almost uniformly as follows:
| 6.30 a.m. | Am called and drink 1 cup cocoa and eat 4 biscuits. | |
| 7.15 a.m. | Get up. | |
| 7.45 a.m. | Finished toilet and read Times till breakfast. | |
| 8.0 | Breakfast. Porridge, scrambled eggs, bread and jam, tea. | |
| 8.30-9.15. | Read Times. | |
| 9.15-10.15. | Parade (or more often not, about twice a week 1 parade). | |
| 10.15-1.0 | Read and write, unless interrupted by duties. | |
| 1.0 | Lunch. Cold meat, pudding, cheese and bread, lemonade. | |
| 1.30-4.0. | Read and write. | |
| 4.0. | Tea, bread and jam. | |
| 4.30. | Censor Civil Telegrams. | |
| 4.45-6.15. | Take exercise, e.g., walk, ride, fish, shoot, or play football. | |
| 6.15. | Have a bath. | |
| 6.30-7.30. | Play skat, or talk on verandah. | |
| 7.30. | Mess. Soup, fish, meat, veg., pudding, savoury, beer or whisky. | |
| 8.45-10.15 | Bridge. | |
| 10.15. | Go to bed. |
Such is the heroic existence of those who are bearing their country's burden in this remote and trying corner of the globe!
Enclosure.
"Meanwhile, let personal recrimination drop. It is the poison of all good counsel. In every controversy there are mean little men who assume that their own motives in taking up a line are of the most exalted and noble character, but that those who dare differ from them are animated by the basest personal aims. Such men are a small faction, but they are the mischief-makers that have many a time perverted discussion into dissension. Their aim seems to be to spread distrust and disunion amongst men whose co-operation is essential to national success. These creatures ought to be stamped out relentlessly by all parties as soon as they are seen crawling along the floor."