104 Idylls of the Field. 



is easily caught ; and then, as if resigned to meet his 

 fate, looks boldly at you with his bright black eyes. 

 His little wings are not half grown, and still there 

 clings about his sleek brown head the nestling down 

 of youth. 



In an apple-tree near by the parent birds are crying. 

 One of them, no doubt the mother, flits from bough 

 to bough with piteous appeal. 



You set the little captive down, and straight it 

 vanishes into the forest of the grass. The anxious 

 mother, flying down to meet it, is content ; her cry is 

 heard no more. 



Just in front a whinchat hovers, poised above a 

 bright thistle-head, the bars of black and white on 

 his expanded tail clear-cut against the green. He 

 has settled now, and clinging to the crimson flower 

 that sways beneath his weight, he utters now and then 

 a sharp ' Click, click/ of caution and alarm as he 

 watches your approach. You will not disturb him ; 

 you turn aside to meet the river. 



In the low bushes by the shore a sedgewarbler is 

 singing. White-breasted martins, too, floating on the 

 sunny air, stoop down to touch the stream, meeting 

 their own fair figures in its tranquil face. 



A little troop of starlings hurries overhead — two 

 broods at least — neighbours perhaps, hatched beneath 

 the thatch-eaves of village barn, and beginning already 

 to join forces for the winter. 



Now a blackbird, flying low across the field, drops 



