BIRD WARNINGS 123 



the wild geranium, and set them in your town garden 

 bullfinches are wonderfully fond of their seeds. 



,., We have known the birds to find out the 



To 



Attract geranium plants in a town garden where 

 bullfinches had never been seen before. 

 To this garden they would come regularly, 

 but always in the early morning. They are cheerful 

 feeders they live on insects and larvae, as well as on 

 many kinds of seeds and berries, in the spring feeding 

 their young on seeds which have been carefully 

 softened. 



Prominent among the birds that mob the barn-owl 



when he flies forth by day are jays and blackbirds. 



They are the noisiest, and to the gamekeeper 



BiF ^ the most useful of all the sentinels of the 

 Warn- 

 ings wood. A sudden hubbub from blackbirds 



and jays always has a meaning. If the birds 

 are flying high it is a sign that the barn-owl is on the 

 move if low, the gamekeeper's thoughts fly to a 

 poaching cat. A cat can hardly move a yard in a 

 wood without a blackbird crying the alarm. His 

 excited notes, suggesting the sound of the words 

 " Flint, flint," are taken up by all the blackbirds 

 within call, and soon the cat is besieged by a throng, 

 and so closely that the keeper can follow pussy's 

 direction, though she remains unseen. And the 

 blackbirds give warning of the movements of stoats 

 and weasels. The wren, too, is a lively and vigilant 



