96 ADVENTURES AMONG BIRDS 



was evident that he was a little troubled at my pres- 

 ence, a little suspicious, from the way he eyed me, 

 flirting his tail and wings ; and once or twice, opening 

 wide his beak, he uttered his alarm-note, a sound 

 closely resembling the harsh, prolonged cry of the 

 familiar missel-thrush. But these little signs of alarm 

 were soon over, and he grew quiet, only continuing 

 to emit his low musical chirp a dozen or more times 

 a minute. 



To me the meeting was a peculiarly happy one, 

 since if I had been asked to choose a bird, one of our 

 common winter visitors, to be with me in this quiet, 

 lonely place, I think I should have said, "Let it be 

 a redwing." He has a special attraction for me for 

 various reasons. He is, I think, the most charm- 

 ing of the thrushes, both in shape and colouring. 

 All of this family are dear to me, and I perhaps 

 admire the others more — the fieldfare, for instance, 

 the chattering winter "blue-bird"; and the missel- 

 thrush, the loud-voiced storm-cock that sings in wet 

 and blowy weather in February; and, above all, the 

 blackbird, the big, ebony-black thrush with a golden 

 bill and fluting voice; but I love the redwing more. 

 There is a wildness, a freshness, in the feeling he gives 

 me which may be partly due to the fact that he is not 

 a cage-bird, that, on this account, there are no degrad- 

 ing images and associations connected with this 

 species. It is true that he is a sweet singer, the 

 "Swedish nightingale" of Linnaeus, but he only sings 

 his full song with the louder notes at home, in summer, 

 in the distant north; and on this account those 



