132 Wild Life in a Southern County 



a desperate rush for the fruit trees or the lawn. The moment 

 lie has succeeded in violently seizing some delicious morsel 

 off he goes, uttering a loud chuckle — half as a challenge, 

 half as a vent for his pent-up anxiety. 



This peculiar chuckle is so well known by all the other 

 birds as a note of alarm that every one in the garden im- 

 mediately moves his position, if only a yard or two. When 

 you are stealing down the side of the hedgerow, endeavour- 

 ing to get near enough to observe the woodpecker in a 

 tree, or with a gun to shoot a pigeon, the great anxiety is 

 lest you startle a blackbird. If he thinks you have not 

 teen him, he is cunning enough to slip out the other side 

 noiselessly and fly down beside the hedge just above the 

 ground for some distance. He then crosses the field to a 

 hedge on the other side, and, just as he safely lands him- 

 self in a thick hawthorn bush a hundred yards away, 

 defiantly utters his cry. The pigeon or the woodpecker 

 will instantly glance round ; but, the cry being at a dis- 

 tance, if you keep still a minute or two they will resume 

 their occupation. But if you should disturb the blackbird 

 on the side of the bank next you, where he knows you 

 must have seen or heard him, or if he is obliged to come 

 out on your side of the hedge, then he makes the meadow 

 ring with his alarm-note, and immediately away goes 

 pigeon or woodpecker, thrushes fly further down the hedge, 

 and 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 hed^e, 

 am coming.' The other is a warning, and will very often 



