268 ADVENTURES AMONG BIRDS 



your presence, he ranges up and down the hedge, 

 rising at intervals to a height of thirty or forty feet 

 and, pausing to hover a few moments like a kestrel, 

 dashes down as if to descend into the hedge to wrest 

 a sparrow from its perch, and when just touching 

 the surface of the thorny tangle the flight is arrested 

 and he skims on a few yards, to mount again and 

 repeat his feint. And at every downward dash a 

 simultaneous cry of terror is uttered by the small 

 birds — a strange sound, that cry of thousands extend- 

 ing the whole length of the hedge, yet like one cry! 

 If you then walk by the hedge-side and peer into it, 

 you will see the small birds crowded together on 

 branchlets and twigs as near the middle of the hedge 

 as they can get, each particular bird perched erect, 

 stiff and motionless, like a little wooden dummy bird, 

 refusing to stir even when you stand within arm's 

 reach of him. For though they fear and fly from 

 the human form, the feeling is overmastered and 

 almost vanishes in their extreme terror of the sharp- 

 winged figure of the little feathered tyrant hovering 

 above them. 



Undoubtedly it is a fine spectacle — one that lives 

 in the memory though less beautiful than that of 

 the peregrine or other high-flying hawk in its chase 

 and conquest of its quarry at a great height in the 

 air; but in this matter of hawks and their fascin- 

 ating exhibitions we have long come to the day 

 of small things. 



Something remains to be said of the owls — or 

 rather of the long-eared owl, this being the only 



