IMITATIVE THRUSH 105 



but the way in which a thrush here imitates the 

 quack of a distant duck is marvellous. How 

 does it arrive at such a low note ? It also, I 

 believe, imitates the squeaking and scrooping of 

 an infirm wheel-barrow that used at one time to 

 go up and down this road a good deal. It caught 

 that up last year, but it has brought it out again 

 now most emphatically and unmistakably. The 

 thrush has not naturally a note like a wheel-barrow 

 with a loose unoiled wheel, has it ? I think I 

 have heard it imitating a robin. Thrushes are 

 numerous here just now, but blackbirds seem to 

 have vanished. Perhaps they are offended or 

 inconvenienced by the starlings, who are per- 

 petually imitating them. I should be, I am sure ; 

 all the more that the imitation is so good. 



June 20, 18,01. 



I think I told you of our imitative thrush. 

 It has been away, or silent, for some time, but 

 piped up again yesterday on the same tree-top. 

 Just now it imitated the noise a hen makes 

 when she has laid an egg so exactly that I could 

 not help laughing. But the bird makes long 

 pauses now between its performances, as if it 

 were listening or trying to recollect. I think 

 I told you it imitated the gull, but I find it 

 was a peacock that it was imitating. It does it 



