The Blackbird as a Sentinel. 14:5 



it is in a different way. His manner is tliat of a bold 

 marauder, conscious that he has no right, and aware 

 that a shot from an ambuscade may lay him low, but 

 detiantly risking the danger. He perches first on a 

 bush, or on the garden wall, under the sheltering 

 boughs of the lime trees, at a distance of some twenty' 

 yards ; then, waiting till all is clear, he makes a 

 desperate rush for the fruit trees or the lawn. The 

 moment he has succeeded in violentl}^ seizing some 

 delicious morsel off he goes, uttering a loud chuckle 

 — half as a challenge, half as a vent for his pent-up 

 anxiety. 



This peculiar chuckle is so well known by all the 

 other birds as a note of alarm that every one in the 

 garden immediately moves his position, if only a yard 

 or two. When you are stealing down the side of 

 the hedgerow, endeaA^oring to get near enough to ob- 

 serve the woodpecker in a tree, or with a gun to shoot 

 a pigeon, the great anxiety is lest 3'ou startle a black- 

 bird. If he thinks you have not seen him, he is cun- 

 ning enough to sUp out the other side noiselessly and 

 fly down beside the hedge just above the ground for 

 some distance. He then crosses the field to a hedge 

 on the other side, and, just as he safely lands himself 

 in a thick hawthorn bush a hundred yards awa}^ 

 defiantly utters his cry. The pigeon or the wood- 

 pecker will instantly glance round ; but, the cry being 

 at a distance, if you keep still a minute or two they 

 will resume their occupation. But if 3'ou should 

 disturb the blackbird on the side of the bank next 

 you, where he knows you must have seen or heard 

 him, or if he is obliged to come out on your side of 

 the hedge, then he makes the meadow ring with his 

 10 



