188 BIRDS OF THE COUNTRYSIDE 



a quiver-full of different sounds, and the chatter itself 

 expresses a varied repertory of emotion. In the wood 

 where I had heard the blackcap I once frightened off 

 a wood-pigeon and a magpie from their nests on the 

 top of a maple and a lofty Scots pine. The pigeon went 

 right away with a clatter of wings, but the pie only 

 flew to a tree a little distance away and uttered the 

 usual rattle, but in it the tautology of anxiety. 



Surely there must be a few landowners who have 

 opened their eyes and minds to the decorative effect of 

 a pied troupe of from a dozen to a score magpies upon 

 their land. They light the English landscape up and 

 make it so strong and savorous that one would have 

 thought an owner who held his land in trust rather than 

 for exploitation would preserve magpies as jealously as 

 vicars do the ancient yews in their churchyards. Magpies 

 are to English woodland and pastures what the place 

 and other names are to " Paradise Lost." 



Many an avowed protector of birds is as bad as any 

 oaf with a gun. One of them told me that he shot 

 jays and magpies to give other birds a chance. What 

 sort of amphibians, then, I asked him, do you call jays 

 and magpies ? It is this kind of thing that opens the 

 cause of protection of the just charge of sentimental- 

 ism. These are the soft, cruel hearts of which Bernard 

 Shaw speaks, for where could you find a better example 

 of meddling sentimentalism than to coddle some species 

 at the expense of others ? Let the small birds take 

 their chance, as nature meant them and brightened 

 their faculties to meet it, and if the magpie does sample 

 an egg now and again, then let him ! It is not so 

 much the big landowners who are responsible to-day 

 as the profiteers who have bought up land. The worst 

 of " vermin "-killers and pheasant-preservers is your 

 city man who has made his pile in all lawful dishonesty. 

 Soon, too, when the supply of foreign birds runs short, 

 the women will be after their plumage. 



In the beginning of June I set out to explore the 

 banks of the little river Rother, which joins the Arun 

 near Petworth in Sussex, but is seldom more than thirty 

 paces wide in this part of Hampshire. 



