32 IN A CHESHIRE GARDEN 



he was restless and very wary, and it was 

 with difficulty I could get a glimpse of him. 

 He was always on the move, hunting about 

 in the tops of the trees, and, I thought, sing- 

 ing in competition with the willow-wrens. 



The blackcap is often placed next to the 

 nightingale as a songster, but there is a very 

 wide interval between them. The most 

 inattentive listener can hardly fail to notice 

 a nightingale's song, but people who are not 

 accustomed to distinguish the different notes 

 of birds are often quite unaware of the 

 presence of a singing blackcap, as the tone 

 of his song mingles with the general chorus. 



Golden-crested wrens are not uncommon 

 in winter, but I have never found a nest here. 

 I notice them most often in October and 

 November, as they are hunting in and out 

 the yews and Scotch firs, sometimes a large 

 party, sometimes only a single pair. 



One June day I was sitting in a cousin's 

 garden in Wales, when out of an arbor-vitae 

 close by appeared a dilapidated-looking 

 gold-crest, which set to work violently and 

 persistently to abuse me. Herein, I think, 

 like the whitethroat mentioned before, it 

 displayed either a perversion of instinct or 

 a want of sense. If it had only kept quiet 

 1 should not have thought of a nest, but it 

 told me so plainly that it had one in that 

 very tree that I looked as a matter of course 



