WATCHING BIRDS AT A STRAW-STACK 207 



do our sainted women wear their feathers? But 

 such speculations are beyond the province of this 

 work. 



Now the feeding goes on apace. All the splendid 

 birds keep scratching backwards in the chaff-heap 

 as do fowls, sending up clouds of it into the air. 

 Like the partridges, too, they utter, from time to 

 time, a variety of curious, low notes, which, unless 

 one were quite near, one would never hear, and 

 once they make a quick little piping sound, all 

 together, standing and lifting up their heads to do 

 it, as though filled with mutual satisfaction and a 

 friendly feeling. The low sounds are of a croodling 

 or clucking character. They are not quite so soft 

 as those of the partridges, and, low as they are, one 

 still catches in them that quality of tone whereof 

 the loud, trumpety notes are niade. 



I have spoken of the extreme nervousness of the 

 first pheasant. The later arrivals, just as would be 

 the case with men, were not nearly so nervous, 

 though all were wary and circumspect. But now 

 it is most interesting to watch them, and to remark 

 how, in these cautious birds, timidity — or say, rather, 

 a proper and most necessary prudence — is tempered 

 with judgment, and modified by individual character 

 or temperament. They are capable of withstanding 

 the first sudden impulse to flight, and of subjecting 

 it to reason and a more prolonged observation. Thus, 

 when the small birds fly, suddenly, off" in a cloud, as 

 they do every few minutes, and with a great whirr of 

 wings, the pheasants all stop feeding, look about, 

 pause a little, seeming to consider, and then recom- 

 mence, as though they had decided that such panic 



