66 HAMPSHIRE DAYS 



and resembles the sharpest sounds made by bats and 

 other small mammals when excited. 



One day I sat down near a hedge, where an old 

 half-dead oak stood among the thorns and brambles, 

 and just by the oak a lesser whitethroat was moving 

 about and singing. Out among the furze-bushes at 

 some distance from the hedge a common whitethroat 

 was singing, flitting and darting from bush to bush, 

 rising at intervals into the air and dropping again 

 into the furze; but by-and-by he rose to a greater 

 height to pour out his inad confused strain in the 

 air, then sloped away to the hedge and settled, still 

 singing, on a dead branch of the oak. Up rose the 

 lesser whitethroat and attacked it with extreme fury, 

 rising to a height of two or three feet and dashing 

 repeatedly at it, looking like a miniature kestrel or 

 hobby; and every time it descended the other ducked 

 his head and flattened himself on the branch, only to 

 rise again, crest erect and throat puffed out, still pour- 

 ing forth its defiant song. As long as this lasted the 

 attacking bird emitted his piercing metallic anger- 

 note, rapidly and continuously, like the clicking of 

 steel machinery. 



Alas! I fear I shall not again see the lesser white- 

 throat as I saw him in that favoured year : in 1901 

 he came not, or came in small numbers; and it was 

 the same in the spring of 1902. The spring was cold 

 and backward in both years, and the bitter continuous 

 east winds which prevailed in March and April pro- 



