96 ADVENTURES AMONG BIRDS 



sociable bird, and so long as his wings can bear him 

 up he cannot endure to be left behind. Furthermore, 

 he is exceedingly shy of the human form, especially 

 when he first arrives on our shores; yet here was this 

 shy bird, alone and sitting very quietly, within three 

 or four yards of me! Still, it was evident that he was 

 a little troubled at my presence, a little suspicious, from 

 the way he eyed me, flirting his tail and wings ; and once 

 or twice, opening wide his beak, he uttered his alarm- 

 note, a sound closely resembling the harsh, prolonged 

 cry of the familiar missel-thrush. But these little signs 

 of alarm were soon over, and he grew quiet, only con- 

 tinuing to emit his low musical chirp a dozen or more 

 times a minute. 



To me the meeting was a peculiarly happy one, since 

 if I had been asked to choose a bird, one of our com- 

 mon winter visitors, to be with me in this quiet, lonely 

 place, I think I should have said "Let it be a redwing." 

 He has a special attraction for me for various reasons. 

 He is, I think, the most charming of the thrushes, both 

 in shape and colouring. All of this family are dear to 

 me, and I perhaps admire the others more — the fieldfare, 

 for instance, the chattering winter "blue-bird" ; and the 

 missel-thrush, the loud-voiced storm-cock that sings in 

 wet and blowy weather in February; and, above all, the 

 blackbird, the big, ebony-black thrush with a golden bill 

 and fluting voice; but I love the redwing more. There 

 is a wildness, a freshness, in the feeling he gives me 

 which may be partly due to the fact that he is not a 

 cage-bird, that, on this account, there are no degrading 



