92 Birds of an Oxford College 



fugitive of the two birds in the open country, it 

 will nest more readily than the thrush on the face 

 of a rocky bank, or even among the walls of an 

 outbuilding or cowshed, if the cover of a hedge- 

 side or garden is not far distant ; and this slightly 

 shaded corner of the quadrangle provides it, as it 

 were, with the utmost limit of cultivation on which 

 it finds it possible to sustain life. 



In so exposed an outpost, where cats hardly 

 provide more cause for alarm than the eccentric 

 inroads of humanity, the blackbird's heart is never 

 sufficiently secure to permit him to meet the south 

 wind and sunshine of full spring with the tireless 

 warbling of his brothers in their own country. 

 The most familiar note of the blackbirds in the quad- 

 rangle is the vociferous uproar, accompanied by 

 excited flights and rushes about their special pre- 

 cincts, with which it is the peculiar custom of their 

 race, in town and country alike, to notify that the 

 sun has set and that it is their intention to go to 

 bed. In summer this clamour echoes to the sun- 

 tipped gables while the latest diners are coming out 

 of hall ; it is associated in November with the wet 

 hour of falling darkness, when the oarsmen come 

 home from the river. But whenever this singular 

 tumult rises, according to the season of the year, 

 for about a quarter of an hour the two undaunted 

 blackbirds are proclaiming to the indifferent walls 

 their traditional evening challenge. 



In the midsummer nights the calls and murmurs 

 of birds are never far away. When quiet gathers 

 after midnight, the cries of hunting owls and the 



