220 ENGLISH BIRD LIFE 



one follows the little track, the interlacing boughs 

 and leaves on either hand appear well-nigh impene- 

 trable, but at length a break is found in the tangle — 

 the run, it may be, of a hare or a fox — and by 

 following this one may reach the inner recesses of 

 the wood. 



Within, the coppice still grows thickly, and it is 

 often hard to thread one's way through the stiff 

 branches, but one comes at last to an open space, a 

 tiny dell, where a fallen tree-trunk, decayed and 

 moss-grown, lies amidst the bracken and dead 

 leaves. 



It is silent here; sometimes the faint cry of the 

 Wood Wren comes from some distant tree-top, but, 

 for the most part, there is no sign of bird life. One 

 mav wait long — half an hour or more — and see no 

 trace of a moving wing. At length, slight warbling 

 notes come from the deepest part of the thicket, 

 checked instantly and followed by jerky sounds, 

 almost like words in some unknown tongue imper- 

 fectly articulated. Amidst these one diml}^ recog- 

 nizes the cries of familiar birds and animals, as in 

 the chattering of the Starling, but here the tones 

 are so low and rapid that the ear can distinguish 

 nothing clearly. 



Anxious to get on more familiar terms Vsith the 

 strange musician, we creep, as silently as may be, 

 through the underwood. But our woodcraft avails 

 us little. Through a vista in the leaves, we catch the 

 barest glimpse of the blue wing-plumes and the 

 white patch on the back of the Jay as he seeks new 

 solitudes untainted bv the presence of an invader. 



These notes of the Jay are not, I think, commonly 



