1960 Selous : Ornithological Observations in Brittany. 
difficulty, but she sat at last completely covering all three, 
high above the level of the nest, like a little sylvan queen on 
her throne. At 8-15 the male was heard, and at 8-25 again, 
each time some little way off. It was just a single rattle the 
first time, several the second. All then became gradually still, 
but a little later, when ‘ the shades of night were falling fast’ 
a Thrush began to sing, and was still singing when [I left, at 
about half-past eight. 
JULY 2oTH.—Got up at 4. My watch was to-day indis- 
posed, but as I postponed ablutions till my return, I must have 
been under cover by 4-30 at the latest. At first I thought the 
largest of the chicks was the hen on the nest, but the next 
moment she arrived and fed one, and the feeding then went on 
in the usual manner. Evidently, then, the birds begin their 
domestic duties with the first light of morning (it was hardly 
light at 4) and continue them till past eight in the evening, a 
sixteen hours day. As my object in coming (which had been 
to ascertain this) was now attained, and there was not likely to 
be any new thing to see, with this species, I did not stay longer, 
and in getting out of my quite perfect place of espial, made a 
rustle, which, though only a slight one, set both the birds off 
chattering—or rattling as I have called it, the sound is so 
continuous and peculiar—in quite a wonderful manner. Their 
anger, their indignation was extreme, causing them to assume 
all sorts of strained and violent attitudes, and, as I began to 
creep out on all fours, they clung to stems much lower down 
than is their. custom, and, bending to the extreme length of 
their bodies, flung down their fury on my head. Nor were they 
alone, for a Robin, a Wren, and a hen Cirl Bunting now made 
part of the angry chorus, which reminded me of the frontis- 
piece to Bates’s ‘ Naturalist on the Amazons,’ except that there 
they are all of one species—Toucans namely. But it at once 
struck me that birds, here at home, do not mob men in this way, 
but only Cats, and as only my head was now visible, and that 
half-hidden and near the ground, I made no doubt it was a 
Cat that I was taken for, especially as there is one often to 
be seen about here, and always received thus heartily. When 
I rose up my suspicion was at once confirmed, for there was an 
immediate dispersal to a greater distance and a drop in the 
intensity of the scolding. This reminds me that, a morning or 
two ago, a hen Cirl Bunting—probably this same bird—came 
into the neighbourhood of the nest, when there was an immedi- 
ate jangle between her and these Warblers. Now again she 
had come within the prohibited degree of proximity, as also 
the other two, but, bound together by the stong tie of a common 
hostility, this point did not arise. The lesser casus belli had 
been merged in the larger one. 
JuLY 21st.—On coming to the nest, this afternoon, I find 
. Naturalist, 
