Sparrow-Fall

Life is never easy, for the Scottish inhabitants of Fair Isle, that rain-drenched pin point of an island in the Shetlands, north of Scotland. Last week the dour-faced inhabitants, who make gaudy sweaters for golfers while they think about Death and the precepts of John Knox, found life almost intolerable. A mysterious disease caused thousands of sparrows to drop dead about the Fair Islanders as they sat grimly at their knitting. No local scientist could explain why the sparrows were falling.