Railway Birds and Flowers 127 



eye as he mounts guard on the wires over his nest, 

 which is concealed with extreme skill in the grass 

 tussocks or dwarf furze-beds on the bank. The 

 sharp " chat-chat " of his alarm note will often 

 float momentarily in at the open window ; for 

 he and his near kindred are among the most openly 

 anxious of birds when they think their nest or 

 young are threatened, and his bosom is moved 

 to some alarm even by the well-known train in 

 steady movement. If the train is stopped by an 

 adverse signal on some sunny stretch of embank- 

 ment where several pairs of whinchats are nesting, 

 the alarm and annoyance of the handsome and 

 distinctive little birds make a picture of such 

 charm and interest that the interruption to the 

 journey becomes a positive pleasure. On the 

 familiar run between London and Reading by the 

 Great Western line, there are two birds which can 

 generally be seen or heard in summer by passengers 

 in the swiftest express. These are the butcher- 

 bird and the corn-bunting. The butcher-bird, or 

 red-backed shrike as he is formally known in 

 English, haunts the stout, thorn hedges that border 

 the line ; the cock bird takes up a bold, hawk-like 

 attitude on a telegraph-wire, a fence-rail, or a jutting 

 spray of the hedge, and can be recognized even as 

 the train passes by his conspicuous pose and 

 dark eye-stripe. The corn-bunting is still commoner 

 among the arable fields along this portion of the 

 line. Dullest and most dejected-looking of all 

 the birds of the field, he sits spiritlessly on the same 

 conspicuous perches, and tirelessly scrapes out the 



