BIRDS IN A VILLAGE 93 



songster close to me and his curious gestures when 

 emitting his sustained reeling sounds. In the end 

 the persistent distressed calling of the drake lost 

 in a brambly labyrinth got a little on my nerves, 

 and I felt it as a relief when it finally ceased. 

 Then, after a short silence, another sound came 

 from the same spot — a blackbird sound, known 

 to everyone, but curiously interesting when ut- 

 tered in the way I now heard it. It was the 

 familiar loud chuckle, not emitted in alarm and 

 soon ended, but the chuckle uttered occasionally 

 by the bird when he is not disturbed, or when, 

 after uttering it once for some real cause, he con- 

 tinues repeating it for no reason at all, producing 

 the idea that he has just made the discovery that 

 it is quite a musical sound and that he is repeat- 

 ing it, as if singing, just for pleasure. At such 

 times the long series of notes do not come forth 

 with a rush; he begins deliberately with a series 

 of musical chirps uttered in a measured manner, 

 like those of a wood wren, the prelude to its 

 song, the notes coming faster and faster and 

 swelling and running into the loud chuckling 

 performance. This performance, like the lost 

 drake's call, was repeated in the same deliberate 



