BIRDS IN A VILLAGE 13 



twig it sat on, a black cat was watching it with 

 luminous yellow eyes* I did not see the cat at 

 first, but have no doubt that the nightingale had 

 seen and knew that it was there* High up on 

 the tops of the thorn a couple of sparrows were 

 silently perched* Perhaps, like myself, they had 

 come there to listen* After I had been standing 

 motionless, drinking in that dulcet music for at 

 least five minutes, one of the two sparrows dropped 

 from the perch straight down, and alighting on the 

 bare wet ground directly under the nightingale, 

 began busily pecking at something eatable it had 

 discovered. No sooner had he begun pecking than 

 out leaped the concealed cat on to him. The sparrow 

 fluttered wildly up from beneath or between the 

 claws and escaped as if by a miracle. The cat raised 

 itself up, glared round, and, catching sight of me 

 close by, sprang back into the hedge and was gone. 

 But all this time the exposed nightingale, perched 

 only five feet above the spot where the attack had 

 been made and the sparrow had so nearly lost his 

 life, had continued singing ; and he sang on for some 

 minutes after, I suppose that he had seen the cat 

 before, and knew instinctively that he was beyond 

 its reach, that it was a terrestrial not an aerial enemy, 

 and so feared it not at all ; and he would perhaps 

 have continued singing if the sparrow had been 

 caught and instantly killed. 



