Anglesey 



the branches overhanging a low stone wall which 

 separated the wood from the road, all peering 

 anxiously down into the dark growth inside. 

 Creeping up, I looked over the wall, and found a 

 sparrow-hawk furiously plucking a young blackbird, 

 heedless of the cries of the birds surrounding it. 

 At sight of me it rose, and dashed off, the young 

 bird dangling from its claws. On the ground was 

 the well-known circle of feathers one so frequently 

 comes across, their distribution in this form result- 

 ing from the flapping of the victim's wings in its 

 unavailing struggles. 



The Menai road, where not walled in by the rock 

 through which it has been cut, is lined by stone 

 walls throughout, and on the sea side of the road 

 the woods continue down to the shore. Birds 

 dearly love an open way through woodland such as 

 this, and although the road was built for the use 

 of man, it is safe to say that it is infinitely more 

 used by birds. 



The dominant note in those early June days was 

 that of the chaffinches. How they rattled at that 

 time ! pure joy of living, without a hint of those 

 undernotes which in the songs of some birds seem 

 to cross the purpose of singing, and leave the mind 

 perplexed and wondering if nature has conflicting 

 modes of expression for similar moods, or if some 

 melancholy elf sits in the listener's ear, turning the 

 sweet sounds to perverse uses. 



But the song of the chaffinch is at once 

 231 



