6 BIRDS, BEASTS, AND FISHES 



you be gone about your business. But should you dis- 

 cover the finished nest and go to rob it, the fiery couple will 

 attack you right bravely, making a noise that puts you to 

 very shame, and flying straight at your hat, as if to lift it 

 from your head. You or the thieving cuckoo, he cares not 

 which you or any other foe, he will fight and drive from 

 his precious eggs, with all his bravery an he can. Whilst 

 his hen is sitting closely in some hollow tree or marsh-oak, 

 he will be sneaking about the trees and bushes, driving off 

 any strange bird, for he is of a dog-in-the-manger disposition. 

 And should you rob him, his wife will go laying again and 

 again, ay ! unto ten clutches, so anxious is he to propagate 

 his kind and seize the world to himself. And so closely does 

 the hen stick to her eggs, that you may sometimes take her 

 from the nest with your hand ; and once having found her 

 cradle, you know where to find it year after year (an she be 

 not robbed), for spring after spring she returns to the same 

 tree, and to the same crotch of the tree, to build. 



The young do not leave their nest till they too can fly, 

 and then they get to know the country round their cradle 

 in their small excursions for worms, snails, and slugs, on 

 which they feed. The marsh cottager, too, knows the old 

 birds, for they dearly love a cherry, or even the buds of 

 plums, bullaces, and red-currants ; but his brave song does 

 not repay the stolen buds and fruits. 



In autumn you see them keep to themselves, family by 

 family, for they are unsocial and independent birds. In- 

 deed, you rarely see more than four or five together in a 

 bunch on the land, or walking clumsily amongst the turnips 

 or along the holls. But they love best to keep about the 

 hawthorn trees, gay with red berries. 



In the hardest weather, when the rivers are frozen, you 

 may see them in large flocks in company with the field- 

 fares, but they are not great friends, for you may see fighting 

 going on at one end of a row of bright-berried thorn-trees 

 in the same field, whilst at the other end the birds are 



