AN ANGRY BIRD 115 



that neither of them seems to mind. Then there 

 are pencilled lines of black and chastened white 

 upon the face, a softening into white upon the chin, 

 and a dab of pure white above the tail — but this you 

 only see in flight. The tail itself seems black when 

 it disports itself staidly, for it is the black tip, then, 

 beyond the black of the wings, that you see. Marry, 

 when it flirteth itself into the air, as it doth full oft, 

 then it showeth itself white, cloaked in a chestnut. 

 The pert little bill and affirmative legs are black. 

 This is how I catch the bird, running over the 

 warrens, it is not from a specimen on a table ; not 

 so exact, therefore, and yet, perhaps, more so — 

 *' lesser than Macbeth, yet greater." Truly these 

 wheat-ears, at 7 o'clock in the morning, with the sun 

 shining, are splendid — which is what General Buller 

 said his men were — but I prefer their uniform to 

 khaki ; I am not sure, however, whether I prefer it 

 to that of the stone-chat, which, though less salient, 

 is superior in warmth and richness. Both these 

 handsome little birds sometimes flash about together 

 in sandy spaces over the moorlands, or may even be 

 seen perched on the same solitary hawthorn or 

 elder. Then is the time to compare their styles, 

 and not to know which to like best. 



The stone-chat, by virtue of his little, harsh, 

 twittering "char," which, as long as you are near him, 

 never leaves ofi^, seems always to be an angry bird. 

 With this assumed state of his mind, his motions, 

 when he chars like this, seem exactly to correspond. 

 There is something in his quick little flights about, 

 from one heather-tuft to another, in the way he 

 leaves and the way he comes down upon them, in 



