28 BIRDS, BEASTS, AND FISHES 



a dry ditch where the blue speedwell flourishes, in a little 

 clump of lush grass, or in a prickly bed of nettles, or even 

 on a piece of waste land. 



And when the eggs are laid and the hen sits closely, you 

 may see the cock, of delicate coat, fly joyously up into the 

 air for a dozen yards, returning to the exact bramble spray 

 whence he started a mere ecstatic expression of joy that 

 all is thriving so prosperously in the little family circle. 

 And when the young are hatched those weak, timid fledg- 

 lings that recall the sedge-warbler's young in habit the 

 happy pair are both busy catching flies and moths near the 

 beloved children, for they never leave their nest far. 



And as soon as the timid chicks have a few feathers not 

 a quarter the number they should have these young things 

 will be leaving the nest (again resembling the sedge-warbler 

 in habit), though they are unable to fly across a good mill 

 outlet: they think, perhaps, that they can run sufficiently 

 well to escape an enemy. But they are not alert enough 

 for that, and the hunting urchin soon " muddles them out," 

 as he expresses it, or makes them lose their little heads, both 

 metaphorically and often, I fear, in reality, for he takes them 

 home to his father's ferrets those omnivorous bird-eaters. 



But when the cherries are ripe the parents know, for the 

 " hay-jack " dearly loves a cherry, thrusting his delicate bill 

 into the most luscious cheek of a Frogmore Bigarreau with 

 the relish of a connoisseur. At other times you may catch 

 his young (four or five in number)* sitting closely together 

 upon a bramble, forming a beautiful little decorative group 

 against the blue, and if you drop behind the nearest green 

 screen and watch, you will see the mother, mayhap, come 

 with a full crop and alight on a spray opposite, and, 'mid 

 many cheepings and flutterings of wings, the timid little 

 songsters are fed in turn. And a pretty little picture it is, 

 till some boisterous boy, perchance, as sometimes happens, 

 knocks three of the timid weaklings over with a smooth 

 stone, so closely are they seated at their little family meal. 



