Character of Bird-Life. 5 



of perching on the first branch, they hesitate, and 

 daintily decline the bough not quite to their fancy. 

 Blackbirds will cruise along the whole length of a 

 hedge before finding a bush to their liking ; they look 

 in several times ere finally deciding. Woodpigeons 

 will make straight for a tree, and slacken speed and 

 show every sign of choosing it, and suddenly, without 

 the slightest cause apparently, go half a mile farther. 

 The partridge which you could vow had dropped just 

 over the hedge has done no such thing ; just before 

 touching the ground she has turned at right angles 

 and gone fifty yards down it. 



The impression left after watching the motions of 

 birds is that of extreme mobility a life of perpetual 

 impulse checked only by fear. With one or two ex- 

 ceptions, they do not appear to have the least idea 

 of saving labor by clearing one spot of .ground of 

 food before flying farther : they just hastily snatch a 

 morsel and off again ; or, in a tree, peer anxiously 

 into every crack and crevice on one bough, and away 

 to another tree a hundred yards distant, leaving fifty 

 boughs behind without examination. Starlings liter- 

 ally race over the earth where they are feeding 

 jealous of each other lest one should be first, and so 

 they leave a tract all around not so much as looked 

 at. Then, having run a little way, they rise and fly 

 to another part of the field. Each starling seems 

 full of envy and emulation eager to outstrip his 

 fellow in the race for titbits ; and so they all miss 

 much of what they might otherwise find. Their life 

 is so gregarious that it resembles that of men in 

 cities : watching one another with feverish anxiety 

 pushing and bustling Larks are much calmer, and 



