90 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE 



but every three seconds the head would be jerked 

 towards me, showing the bright yellow colour of 

 the open mouth. The reeling would last about 

 three minutes, then the bird would unbend or 

 unstiffen and take a few hops about the bush, then 

 stiffen and begin again. While thus gazing and 

 listening I, by chance, met with an experience of 

 that rare kind which invariably strikes the ob- 

 server of birds as strange and almost incredible — 

 an example of the most perfect mimicry in a 

 species which has its own distinctive song and is 

 not a mimic except once in a while, and as it 

 were by chance. The marsh warbler is our per- 

 fect mocking-bird, our one professional mimic; 

 while the starling in comparison is but an amateur. 

 We all know the starling's ever varying per- 

 formance in which he attempts a hundred things 

 and occasionally succeeds; but even the starling 

 sometimes affects us with a mild astonishment, and 

 I will here give one instance. 



I was staying at a village in the Wiltshire 

 downs, and at intervals, while sitting at work in 

 my room on the ground floor, I heard the cack- 

 ling of a fowl at the cottage opposite. I heard, 

 but paid no attention to that familiar sound; but 



