48 THE RING OF NATURE 



naturalists have declared of their experience that 

 the hen-bird never sounds upon any other branch 

 that will not give a note about a tone lower than 

 the one struck by the cock. 



I can hear all day the rattle of one of these 

 birds that has apparently not yet found a mate, 

 and when I like can go out and see how he 

 performs his music. So rapidly does he move 

 his head that it runs into a blur, and he delivers 

 some ten strokes, the whole sum of his call, in 

 the space of a second. Sometimes when you 

 open the lid of a box against a wooden wall, it 

 hits with a shivering succession of rebounds that 

 fairly well produces the call of the great spotted- 

 woodpecker. 



Each bird has its own distinctive charm in the 

 way it ' shows off ' at mating time. The humble 

 hedge-sparrow has its own, which earns for it 

 the name of ' shuffle-wing.' The goldfinch makes 

 wonderful play with the gold upon its wings, 

 so does the scarcely less aureate greenfinch, the 

 plover flashes from rifle green to white with un- 

 wonted verve, the jay and the hawfinch fly slowly 

 before their lady-loves so as to show how wonder- 

 fully they are coloured on an expanded view. 



Every one has his favourites. Mine, I think, 

 is the pied wagtail. It droops its wings and 

 struts them upon the ground, like a very daintily 

 made turkeycock. It is so ethereal in its mar- 

 tial loveliness that it seems to have a diffi- 

 culty in keeping the ground, for it blows up 



