88 BIRDS OF THE COUNTRYSIDE 



found it or not, but simply for the pleasure of having 

 their company in a world where the larger birds shun 

 our presence, as Coleridge's walker fled the " fearful 

 fiend, That close behind him treads." So I walked 

 about, enjoying the unique sensation of these fine birds 

 following me all over the field, flying close round my 

 head, and displaying the utmost anxiety and fearless- 

 ness. But at last I grew ashamed of getting my 

 pleasure at the expense of an emotion painful to them, 

 and slunk off, being seen safely and some distance off 

 the premises by the outraged tenants. They are wily 

 enough when the hunt is a determined one, and I 

 knew when I first peeped through at the sentinel male 

 he would signal to his mate to run from her eggs or 

 chicks before rising from another quarter of the field 

 to join him in a protest demonstration, half-politic, 

 half-earnest. The cries of lapwings are much more 

 varied and musical when the sexual impulse is at flood 

 tide than at any other time, and though they will 

 " tumble " out of an excess of high spirits in autumn 

 as well as spring, they will pirouette and dance and 

 sport irregularly in the air during the nuptial season as 

 at no other time, as though the exhilaration of living 

 demanded a kind of free verse movement in flight. 



So I jogged along that lavish, swelling, varied, though 

 never grand country, finding both whitethroats, the 

 lesser just as demonstrative and excitable as his 

 cousin, and singing his shrill, garrulous warble with 

 crest raised, body shaken, and throat puffed out and 

 vibrating in the fine frenzy of melody. The common 

 whitethroat's song is also an ejaculation, sharply grated 

 out, but it is more varied and less brief, and its scold- 

 ing notes are interchanged with others of a more 

 musical quality. Both these little warblers are twig- 

 thumping orators. The lesser is more arboreal than 

 the common, and prefers the tree-tops. I heard an 

 occasional blackcap and garden-warbler, and saw two 

 or three jays and magpies, before I arrived at the long, 

 winding street of Selborne village. 



that the reason partly is that the bird deliberately selects a spot 

 most resembling the colouration of the egg. 



