Daily Pym

The Dominion of the Birds

‘And that’s not the worst,’ she went on, rummaging in a small desk which stood open and seemed to be full of old newspapers. ‘Read this.’ She handed me a cutting headed OWL BITES WOMAN, from which I read that an owl had flown in through a cottage window and bitten a woman on the chin. ‘And this,’ she went on, handing me another cutting which told how a swan had knocked a girl off her bicycle. ‘What do you think of that?’

— Excellent Women, chapter sixteen

At the same time the big stuffed eagle in the hall — from which the hotel took its name — was given its annual cleaning with one of the Hoover attachments. The fierce-looking king of birds submitted himself to various indignities at the hands of a bustling woman.

— No Fond Return of Love, chapter sixteen