Birds by Land and Sea 



more prosaic feeding, until he feels impelled to renew 

 his protestations, when the performance is gone 

 through again. It is probably to the fact that cocks 

 are shot off more freely than hens that we must 

 ascribe the lapse of the pheasant into polygamy, 

 since, in its wild state, the bird is monogamous, and 

 discharges the duties of a parent in aiding the female 

 to attend to the young. 



Dunnock, thrush, and blackbird had by this time 

 built their nests to the sound of their own singing, 

 and the house and tree sparrows had woven their 

 summer dwellings with more chirps than straws. 

 Great-tit, coal-tit, and blue-tit were hunting in pairs, 

 the last singing on the wing as he followed his little 

 mistress from tree to tree. Many of the rooks had 

 got over the twig-breaking stage, and were gathering 

 tufts of dead grass with which to line their nests ; 

 whilst here and there a still, black tail, projecting 

 over the edge of the nest, attested the even more 

 serious occupation of the sitting hen. And the sky- 

 lark was everywhere, early and late pouring out a 

 rain of song upon the green meadow beneath him. 

 The reed-bunting, with velvety black head and white 

 neck-band, and the meadow pipit and pied wagtail 

 the latter, startling in his pure white plumage pied 

 with lustrous black flitted in pairs by the river and 

 over the water meadows, calling to one another as 

 they went. The great bands of lapwings broke up 

 at the middle of the month, some departing north- 

 wards, others remaining to toy like pairs of great 



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