IN MY LADY'S GARDEN 



induce it to mix, and paraffin floating on the top of the 

 water is deadly in its consequences. 



Most of the birds of the garden rear two or three broods 

 of nestlings in the course of the summer, some of which, 

 I fear, fall a prey to the cat before they are quite able to fly. 

 The anxiety of the mother birds when their young ones leave 

 the nest is great, and their manoeuvres are curious to watch. 

 The hen blackbird (a misnomer, by the way, for she is 

 dressed in rusty-brown) attacks pussy every time she appears 

 in the neighbourhood of the bushes in which the young 

 brood is hidden, trailing her wings and screaming loudly 

 as she chases the cat, within a few inches of his tail, to draw 

 his attention from the nestlings. Pussy, dignified and well 

 fed, turns occasionally on his pursuer, swearing and spitting 

 at the impudence of the bird, but does not venture to attack 

 it, for the angry mother is too much like an Irishman at 

 Donnybrook Fair to be a pleasant assailant. The robins 

 give warning to all the birds directly the cat appears with 

 a cry exactly like the sound of a tiny watchman's rattle. 

 The young robins are conveyed into the thickest laurel or 

 choisya bush to be found near their nest, as soon as they first 

 leave it, where they live for several days, constantly fed by 

 the parent birds, before they can fly strongly. " Pretty 

 Dick," the tame chaffinch, which, like the robins, comes to 

 the call for crumbs, brings his mate, in sober attire, with 

 him, although she is not nearly so tame. He is a beautiful 

 bird in soft shades of terracotta-red, with a crested cap and 

 wings of slaty-blue, softened off into olive-green on the 

 back ; his wings are barred with black and creamy yellow, 

 and altogether he is extremely smart as well as most hard- 

 working. He comes to the window very early in the 

 morning with his insistent metallic chirp for food for his 

 nestlings, and will fly to his friend for it even when other 

 " humans " are close by. He is a son of the " Little Widow," 

 a hen chaffinch, who lost her mate and one of her feet in 

 some accident two years ago, and consequently had very 

 hard work indeed to bring up her family, even with all the 

 help we could give her. She brought her brood to be fed 



202 



