IN PAIRING TIME 131 



guard ; the courtship (in what secret wise I have 

 never yet found out) has been brought to a successful 

 issue ; housekeeping has begun ; and very clever 

 must he have been who has seen a straw carried for 

 the building of the nest. No bird is more secret in 

 this respect, or holds itself more aloof generally than 

 the Missel-Thrush. 



Very similar is the usual courtship in the Black- 

 birds, which also begins at the end of January. 

 Their wooings seem fated to be of the three-cornered 

 sort ; and not seldom even three cocks may be seen 

 laying siege to the same lady. She a passive pivot, 

 as it seems provides a point about which they turn, 

 until the inevitable scuffle rids her of the embarass- 

 ment of making a personal choice. 



More interesting than this almost mechanical 

 betrothal was a case that came under my notice in 

 the third week of March. I was passing beside a 

 bramble-covered ditch Blackbirds and Song- 

 thrushes do most of their courting in ditches when 

 I heard a continuous prattle of small squeakings and 

 pipings, and looked up to some ragged larches 

 above for the polyglot Starling. Only he, I thought, 

 could have spoken in such a grotesquely " monstrous 

 little voice." But as I waited, I saw a cock Blackbird 

 creep up the ditch bank in a most unusual manner. 

 The long black tail, fanned to the full and depressed, 

 trailed along the ground as the bird crawled slowly 

 up with body low in the grass. The head, held 

 forward on the stiffly extended neck, turned 

 neither to the right nor to the left ; and from the 

 slightly opened bill came that continuous flow of small 

 squealings and pipings as the bird dragged itself along. 



