66 RURAL BIRD LIFE. 



more so than the Wren, and his only aim when disturbed 

 is to seek safety in seclusion. He but rarely takes to 

 flight when alarmed, preferring to creep and hop with 

 amazing rapidity up the hedgerows, silently as a shadow. 

 If you see him amongst a heap of hedge clippings or old 

 timber, your glimpse of him is but brief, and he takes 

 shelter in the thickest parts of the cover, where his sober 

 plumage is in harmony with the dusky shadows of his 

 retreat. Again, you seldom, very seldom, see the birds 

 otherwise than solitary, save in the pairing and breeding 

 seasons. The Hedge Accentor's claim as a perennial 

 songster is but a slight one. If the situation of his 

 haunt is bare and exposed he is seldom heard to sing in 

 the inclement season of the year. It is only amongst the 

 evergreens that his melody, as a rule, is heard in the winter 

 months, and even there it is by no means so freely uttered 

 or so often heard as the tuneful warblings of the Robin 

 and Wren. The song of the Hedge Accentor is a plain- 

 tive one, and something similar to that of the Wren, 

 only not so loud and not of such long duration. Its low 

 and plaintive character probably saves it from being 

 classed as monotonous, for without those characteristics it 

 would indeed be but a poor performance. It is when sing- 

 ing that we have a good opportunity of observing this 

 unobtrusive little creature ; for when so engaged he will 

 often mount the topmost branches of the trees or hedge- 

 rows, and gladden the air around with his short and 

 plaintive song. The Hedge Accentor sings in those dis- 

 tricts where "he is well sheltered from the beginning of 

 October right away through the v/inter. Then the 

 genial spring calls them all into song, and they sing in- 

 cessantly until the middle of July, when their notes are 

 lost in the autumnal moult. The call notes are low and 



