The Blackbird as a Sentinel. 14:5 



it is in a different way. His manner is that of a bold 

 marauder, conscious that he has no right, and aware 

 that a shot from an ambuscade may lay him low, but 

 defiantly risking the danger. He perches first on a 

 bush, or on the garden wall, under the sheltering 

 boughs of the lime trees, at a distance of some twenty 

 yards; then, waiting till all is clear, he makes a 

 desperate rush for the fruit trees or the lawn. The 

 moment he has succeeded in violently seizing some 

 delicious morsel off "he goes, uttering a loud chuckle 

 half as a challenge, half as a vent for his pent-up 

 anxiety. 



This peculiar chuckle is so well known by all the 

 other birds as a note of alarm that every one in the 

 garden immediately moves his position, if only a yard 

 or two. When you are stealing down the side of 

 the hedgerow, endeavoring to get near enough to ob- 

 serve the woodpecker in a tree, or with a gun to shoot 

 a pigeon, the great anxiety is lest you startle a black- 

 bird. If he thinks }*ou have not seen him, he is cun- 

 ning enough to slip out the other side noiselessly and 

 fly down beside the hedge just above the ground for 

 some distance. He then crosses the field to a hedge 

 on the other side, and, just as he safely lands himself 

 in a thick hawthorn bush a hundred yards away, 

 defiantly utters his cry. The pigeon or the wood- 

 pecker will instantly glance round ; but, the cry being 

 at a distance, if you keep still a minute or two they 

 will resume their occupation. But if you should 

 disturb the blackbird on the side of the bank next 

 you, where he knows } T OU must have seen or heard 

 him, or if he is obliged to come out on your side of 

 the hedge, then he makes the meadow ring with his 

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