262 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE 



head. At length recalled to myself I began to 

 wonder at the unusual silence in the garden, 

 until, casting my eyes on the lawn, I discovered 

 the reason; for there, moving about in their vari- 

 ous ways, most of the birds were collected in a 

 loose miscellaneous flock, a kind of happy family. 

 There were the starlings, returned from the fields, 

 and looking like little speckled rooks ; some spar- 

 rows, and a couple of robins hopping about in 

 their wild startled manner; in strange contrast 

 to these last appeared that little feathered clod- 

 hopper, the chaffinch, plodding over the turf as 

 if he had hobnailed boots on his feet; last, but 

 not least, came statuesque blackbirds and thrushes, 

 moving, when they moved, like automata. They 

 all appear to be finding something to eat; but I 

 watch the thrushes principally, for these are more 

 at home on the moist earth than the others, and 

 have keener senses, and seek for nobler game. 

 I see one suddenly thrust his beak into the turf 

 and draw from it a huge earthworm, a wriggling 

 serpent, so long that although he holds his head 

 high, a third of the pink cylindrical body still 

 rests in its run. What will he do with it? We 

 know how wandering Waterton treated the boa 



