146 The Blackbird Coivardly yet Impudent. 



alarm-note, and immediately away goes pigeon or 

 woodpecker, thrushes fly further down the hedge, 

 and the rabbits feeding in the grass lift up their heads 

 and, seeing you, rush to their burrows. In this way 

 the blackbird acts as a general sentinel. 



He has two variations of this cry. One he uses 

 when just about to change his feeding-ground and 

 visit another favorite corner across the field ; it is as 

 much as to say, ' Take notice, all you menials ; I, 

 the king of the hedge, am coming.' The other is a 

 warning, and will very often set two or three other 

 blackbirds calling in the same way whose existence 

 till then was unsuspected. These calls are quite 

 distinct from his song. 



Sometimes, when sitting on a rail in the shade of 

 a great bush a rail placed to close a gap I have 

 had a blackbird come across the meadow and perch 

 just above my head. Till the moment of alighting 

 he was ignorant of my presence, and for a second 

 the extremity of his astonishment literally held him 

 speechless at his own temerity. The next what 

 an outcry and furious bustle of excitement to escape ! 

 So in the garden here he makes a desperate rush, 

 seizes his prey, and off again twenty or thirty yards, 

 exhibiting an amusing mixture of courage and timid- 

 ity. This process he will repeat fifty times a day. 

 No matter how terribly frightened, his assurance 

 quickly returns, and another foray follows ; so that 

 you begin by thinking him the most cowardly and 

 end by finding him the most impudent of birds. 



I own I love the blackbird, and never wear % y of 

 observing him. There is a bold English independ- 

 ence about him an insolent consciousness of his 



