262 BIRD LIFE GLIMPSES 



dabchick to come to you, for as to your trying to go 

 to him, that is no good whatever — " that way mad- 

 ness lies/' In watching birds, though it may not 

 be quite true — certainly I have not found it so — that 

 " all things come to him who knows how to wait," 

 this at least may be said, that nothing, as a rule, 

 comes to him who does not know how to — least of 

 all a dabchick. 



Long before one sees the little bird — long before 

 one could see it were it right in front of one, if one 

 comes at the proper time — one hears its curious 

 little note — accompanied, often, with scufflings and 

 other sounds that make one long to be there — 

 amongst the reeds and rushes, in the darkness. 

 This note — which, until one knows all about it, fills 

 one with a strange curiosity — is a thin chirrupy 

 chatter, high and reed-like, rapidly repeated, and 

 with a weak vibration in it. It is like no other bird- 

 cry that I am acquainted with, but it resembles, or 

 suggests, two things — first, the neigh or hinny of a 

 horse heard very faintly in the distance (for which I 

 have often mistaken it), and, again, if a tittering 

 young lady were to be changed, or modified, into 

 a grasshopper, but beg, as a favour, to be allowed 

 still to titter — as a grasshopper — this would be it. 

 Sometimes, too, when it comes, low and faint, in the 

 near distance, one might think the fairies were 

 laughing. This is the commonest of the dabchick's 

 notes, and though it has some other ones, they are 

 uttered, for the most part, in combination with it, 

 and, especially, lead up to, and usher it in, so that it 

 becomes, through them, of more importance, as the 

 grande finale of all, in which the bird rises to its 



