The Blackbird as a Sentinel. 163 
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 violently 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, endeavouring 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 you startle a black- 
bird. If he thinks you have not seen him, he is cun- 
ning enough to slip 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 away, 
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 you 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 
alarm-note, and immediately away goes pigeon or 
woodpecker, thrushes fly further down the hedge, and 
M2 
