210 ADVENTURES AMONG BIRDS 



themselves as they do immediately we are out of 

 sight and mind. What a contrast in this respect is 

 there between such species as the stonechat and 

 goldcrest ! One is always watching us, always anxious, 

 and refuses not only to go on with his love-making 

 or nest-building but even refuses to sing if we are 

 there; while to the other our presence is no more 

 than that of a rock or tree. I was delighted to find 

 that the marsh warbler was more like the last than 

 the first, that he went on with his feeding, wooing, 

 nest-building, his feud with his rivals, or with the 

 neighbouring cock who from time to time ventured 

 to intrude on his little dominion, and above all with 

 his beautiful singing, just as though I had not been 

 there at all. My greatest pleasure was to mark a 

 spot which a pair of the birds had selected as their 

 own and to go and settle myself down in the very 

 middle of the sacred ground. There the cock would 

 quickly come to me, evidently recognising in me a 

 living creature of some kind — a big animal with the 

 faculty of locomotion — and at first he would appear 

 to be a little anxious about the safety of his nest, 

 but after a few minutes the trouble would vanish 

 from his little volatile mind and he would be all 

 freedom and gladness and melody, with transitory 

 fits of rage and other emotions, as before. On these 

 occasions I sometimes had one singing almost con- 

 tinuously for several minutes to half an hour within 

 a dozen yards of where I sat. At such times his 

 strains sounded louder but no less sweet than when 

 heard at a distance of forty or fifty yards. On one 



