BIRDS AND MAN 61 



absorbed in thought 1 had not remarked it. A 

 considerable number of goldcrests were flitting 

 through the branches and passing from tree to 

 tree, keeping over and near me, all together 

 uttering their most vehement cries of alarm. 

 I stopped and listened to the httle chorus of 

 shrill squeaking sounds, and watched the birds as 

 well as I could in the obscurity of the branches, 

 flitting about in the greatest agitation. It A^^as 

 perfectly clear that I was the cause of the excite- 

 ment, as the birds increased in number as long as 

 I stood at that spot, untU there could not have 

 been less than forty or fifty, and when I again 

 walked on they followed. One expects to be 

 mobbed and screamed at by guUs, terns, lapwings, 

 and some other species, when approaching their 

 nesting -places, but a hostile demonstration of 

 this kind from such minute creatures as gold- 

 crests, usually indifferent to man, struck me as 

 very unusual and somewhat ridiculous. What, 

 I asked myself, could be the reason of their 

 sudden alarm, when my previous visits to the 

 wood had not excited them in the least? I 

 could only suppose that I had, without knowing 

 it, brushed against a nest, and the alarm note of the 



