SIGHT — FIELDWORK AND EXPERIMENTS 57 



occasion my model was mobbed. I hope no one will think 

 that from this the distribution of crescent-shaped pieces of 

 cardboard will keep birds off vegetable gardens for ever — I 

 don't have much faith in any of these devices except for a 

 short while. If no subsequent attack on birds ever takes place, 

 these threatening outlines lose their powers. The birds soon 

 get to learn that in spite of their shape they are harmless, 

 but that is not the point. My rough experiment was for the 

 purpose of finding out if apparent wing shape, with no head 

 or neck (either long or short) would produce alarm among 

 small birds — it did. 



I should also like to relate a quite accidental observation 

 I was able to make a few years ago when a baby cuckoo, 

 which I had hand-reared, was first set at hberty in my garden. 

 I must explain that my garden is small but contains some 

 fruit trees, while at one end there is quite a tall birch. I must 

 also remind readers that a cuckoo — even a newly fledged one 

 — has very hawk-like wings and it has not got a particularly 

 short neck; also the distance across the garden was less than 

 thirty yards of flight space. 



I had the young cuckoo on my hand and I had been feed- 

 ing it. To be truthful I thought that as it was so tame it might 

 fly from my hand into a nearby tree and then either come 

 to hand again or let me catch it up. I was wrong, however, 

 because the bird took wing very suddenly and flew straight 

 from my hand, across the garden and landed in the birch 

 tree. The flight cannot have taken more than a few 

 seconds. 



Notwithstanding the short duration of this flight, the 

 cuckoo had hardly perched itself before about a dozen small 

 birds — tits, chaffinches, greenfinches, and sparrows — ap- 

 peared as if by magic and set about mobbing the cuckoo. 

 My bird stood this for about a minute, when it flew back 

 towards me and took refuge in an apple tree by which I was 

 sitting. It was pursued by the mob, most of which sheered 

 away when they saw me ; but a pair of greenfinches did not 

 give up. They took up station in the tree above my head; 

 the cock at one end of the branch on which the cuckoo had 

 landed, and the hen at the other. Then they sidled rather 

 stealthily towards the cuckoo. I watched for a moment or 



