MISADVENTURES OF BIRD-WATCHING 57 



pair of blackbirds were busy educating a hopeful 

 young brood ; and, directly I arrived on the 

 scene, they commenced a vociferous alarm, 

 making such use of their tongues that every 

 furred and feathered inhabitant of the valley 

 seemed keenly alive to an imagined danger. 

 Needless to say, the warblers were on the alert, 

 and the hen at once began to indulge in her 

 favourite methods of misleading. Thinking it 

 useless to remain in the accustomed hiding-place, 

 I crept towards the river, and there, ensconced 

 beneath a furze-clump, endeavoured to follow 

 the movements of my wily friends. 



The clamour of the river, raging through a 

 narrow channel between the rocks immediately 

 behind, drowned the lieu-wee, heu-wee of the 

 warblers ; and so, having once lost sight of them, 

 I was unable to trace their movements by their 

 frequent notes of alarm. I resolved, in spite of 

 everything, to watch intently the place to which 

 it was likely that the warblers would ultimately 

 return ; but the " everything " could hardly be 

 expected to include the bull. After an hour of 

 useless watching, I suddenly found that a herd 

 of cattle had browsed towards me, headed by the 

 patriarch, a beast of forbidding aspect, with a 

 ring in his nose, and altogether much more 

 formidable in appearance than he had appeared 

 when, on the previous evening, he rubbed his 



