164 BIRDS OF THE COUNTRYSIDE 



dress) perched on the branch of a small ash among a 

 flock of forty or so chaffinches, and not six yards from 

 where I crouched. It is not often that the siskin's 

 roof is the sky, his bars the wide horizon, his floor 

 the earth, and his box of seeds the verdure thereof, 

 rot often that (like the great tit) he associates with 

 chafiinches — tits, goldcrests and redpoles being his usual 

 companions. 



December 15th. — The day was the darkest yet for 

 my farewell ramble. I watched a biggish bird on an 

 elm darting up and down from branch to branch, 

 wagging his head, scuffling to and fro in a fever of 

 restlessness, and uttering an extraordinary cry like that 

 of a dog on a chain — ^half bark, half whine. Natur- 

 ally, this was exciting, and I stalked this oddity as well 

 as I could, now that the land is all bog. Then, before 

 I could get very close, away he flew, displajnng the 

 white rump and discharging the characteristic scream 

 of the jay. But I have never heard the jay imitating 

 a yard-dog before, nor seen any account of it in a 

 natural history volume. Was he actually mocking a 

 dog he had heard ? Montagu in his Dictionary of Birds 

 says the jay will at intervals introduce into its spring 

 song " the bleatings of a Lamb, mewing of a Cat, the 

 note of a Kite or Buzzard, hooting of an Owl, and even 

 the neighing of a Horse.'- 



Mimicry, indeed, plays a much larger part in bird- 

 life than is supposed. In captivity, when the poor things 

 have little else to do, most birds imitate the sounds 

 they hear about them, and in London I have heard a 

 song thrush imitate the loud yell of a parrot in a 

 house near his evening perch to perfection. There are 

 numerous examples of blackbirds picking up the bar of 

 some popular song, and the yoimg of the finer singers 

 learn their parents' melodies by intelligent mimicry, 

 grafted on to fundamental inheritance. Witchell gives 

 many examples (a trifle stretched, it is true) of birds 

 imitating elemental sounds — onomatopoeia in fact — the 

 belted kingfisher a mill-dam, owls the moaning of wind 

 in hollow trees, the American marsh-wren the air-bubbles 

 of the marsh, and other birds the rippling of streams. 



