NOTES OF BIRDS. 101 



appear quite alive with their numbers. Thus con- 

 gregated they keep up an incessant chirping, mixed 

 with a shrill squeak occasionally uttered by certain 

 individuals, exactly resembling the cry of some ani- 

 mal in distress. So great, indeed, is the deception, 

 that I have been often drawn to the spot in the ex- 

 pectation of finding a hare in a trap, or that had 

 been seized by vermin, or some occurrence of the 

 like nature. 



Blackbirds, prior to roosting, are not only 

 clamorous, but singularly restless. They fly about 

 from bush to bush in a hurried and agitated manner, 

 as if endeavouring to escape some bird of prey, or 

 otherwise apprehensive of danger. Their note at 

 such times is a kind of twittering scream, different 

 from what is usually heard at any other time of 

 the day. 



Other birds have no particular cry which they use 

 at roosting-time, but, as the time draws on, they pur- 

 sue their ordinary song with greater earnestness and 

 vivacity. This is particularly the case with the song 

 thrush and the hedge accentor. The latter was 

 observed by one of our older naturalists * to keep 

 up its song to a later period of the day than almost 

 any other species. 



It may be noticed also that swifts become more 



* W. Turner, a physician and naturalist, who lived in the time 

 of Henry VIII. He wrote a work in Latin, now scarce, on the 

 principal birds mentioned in Pliny and Aristotle. Speaking of 

 the hedge sparrow (as he terms it) he says, " paulo ante vesperum 

 solet impensius strepere, et omnium fere avium postrema dormitum 

 petit?' 



