302 HAMPSHIRE DAYS 



in the village, another just outside of it, and the third 

 by the thorn-grown foundation of ruined Abbotstone 

 not far off came as a surprise to me ; for it appeared 

 that the cirl in its breeding habits and language was 

 not like other buntings, nor indeed like any other bird. 

 The young hatched out of the curiously marked or 

 " written " eggs are like those of the yellow-hammer, 

 black as moor-hen chicks in their black down, opening 

 wide crimson mouths to be fed. But should the parent 

 birds, or one of them, be watching you at the nest, they 

 will open not their beaks, but hearing and obeying the 

 warning note they lie close as if glued to the bottom of 

 the nest. It is a curious sound. Unless one knows it, 

 and the cause of it, one may listen a long time and not 

 discover the bird that utters it. The buntings sit as 

 usual, motionless and unseen among the leaves of the 

 tree, and so long as you are near the nest, keep up the 

 sound, an excessively sharp metallic chirp, uttered in 

 turns by both birds, but always a short note in the 

 female, and a double note in the male, the second one 

 prolonged to a wail or squeal. No other bird has an 

 alarm or warning note like it : it is one of those very 

 high sounds that are easily missed by the hearing, like 

 the robin's fine -drawn wail when in trouble about 

 his young; but when you catch and listen to it the 

 effect on the brain is somewhat distressing. A Hamp- 

 shire friend and naturalist told me that a pair of these 

 birds that bred in his garden almost drove him crazy 

 with their incessant sharp alarm note. 



