166 WILD NATURE'S WAYS. 



led me to believe that they do so to no great 

 extent. 



I waited my opportunity to enter the place 

 of concealment whilst both the male and female 

 redstarts were away, collecting food ; but, un- 

 luckily, the latter returned more quickly than I 

 had anticipated, and espied me crawling beneath 

 the colt's-foot leaves and canvas. She straight- 

 way swallowed the small green caterpillars she 

 held in her bill, and taking up her station in an 

 ash-tree close by, rattled out her alarm cry with 

 as much earnestness and persistency as if I had 

 been a marauding cat. Presently her mate came 

 upon the scene, and in silence took up a position 

 beside her. She told him a dreadful tale of the 

 dangers of approaching their nest, but in the 

 absence of anything either to see or hear, he 

 evidently did not believe a word of the alarming 

 news, and flew straight down to my stick, and 

 thence to deliver the wriggling throng he held 

 between his mandibles to the hungry youngsters 

 in the breast of the bank. Again and again he 

 came, with such wilful and complete indifference 

 to his mate's warnings and entreaties, that she 

 grew tired of her occupation, and went away. In 

 course of time she ventured timidly home, and 

 I figured her with an expression of suspicious 

 alarm on her countenance, which contrasted 

 greatly with the bold, confident look of the male. 



