360 AUTUMN AND WINTER 



memorised by the country version of it — ' A very, very little 

 bit of bread and no cheese.' The last two words represent 

 the two lower notes at the end ; and these at first the bird is 

 often unable to deliver. The February sunshine falls on the 

 golden bloom in the hillside furze-brake, and on the golden 

 feathers of the birds perched above ; and they answer one 

 another with the halting and incomplete notes soon to 

 develop into the ditty that echoes so persistently by the 

 sun-smitten highways late into August and September. 

 Perhaps one yellowhammer gets the full song about once in 

 three times, another delivers the first and most emphatic of 

 the two final notes, and a third does not get more than half- 

 way. Before they begin to utter even the easier early notes 

 of their song, yellowhammers display the rudiments of the 

 impulse to sing in a curious and noticeable way. About 

 sunset at the beginning of February they mount to the same 

 conspicuous perches in the hedges and gorse-brakes where 

 they afterwards sing, and utter a laboured chirp with an air 

 of emphasis and challenge. It is an exceedingly rudimentary 

 method of expression ; but the bird's whole demeanour indi- 

 cates strongly that it is meant as an effort at song, and as 

 a vindication of its right to that particular stretch of the 

 hedgerow or thicket. This stage does not last long ; ten 

 days or a fortnight after the yellowhammer has begun to 

 act in this way it usually begins to sing, and in a week or 

 a fortnight more the well-known ditty is complete. 



There is little or no similarity of tone between the yellow- 

 hammer's rudimentary chirp and the notes of its song ; nor 

 has the chaffinch's song any noticeable likeness to its common 

 cries and call-notes. But the development of the green 

 woodpecker's full notes as spring approaches is an interesting 

 example of expansion from the normal winter cry. The loud 

 laughing note of the ' yaffle ' or ' ecle ' — as the green wood- 



