164 Wild Life in a Southern County. 
the rabbits feeding in the grass lift up their heads 
and, seeing you, rush to their burrows. In this way 
the blackbird acts as a general sentinel. 
He has two variations of this cry. One he uses 
when just about to change his feeding-ground and 
visit another favourite corner across the field; it is as 
much as to say, ‘Take notice, all you menials ; I, the 
king of the hedge, am coming.’ The other is a warn- 
ing, and will very often set two or three other black- 
birds calling in the same way, whose existence till 
then was unsuspected. These calls are quite distinct 
from his song. 
Sometimes, when sitting on a rail in the shade of 
-a great bush—a rail placed to close a gap—I have 
had a blackbird come across the meadow and perch 
just above my head. Till the moment of alighting 
he was ignorant of my presence, and for a second the 
extremity of his astonishment literally held him 
speechless at his own temerity. The next—what an 
outcry and furious bustle of excitement to escape! 
So in the garden here he makes a desperate rush, 
seizes his prey, and off again twenty or thirty yards, 
exhibiting an amusing mixture of courage and 
timidity. This process he will repeat fifty times a 
day. No matter how terribly frightened, his as- 
surance quickly returns, and another foray follows; 
so that you begin by thinking him the most cowardly 
and end by finding him the most impudent of birds. 
I own I love the blackbird, and never weary of 
