74 
ORGANS OF VOICE. 
gating birds, or those that live together, act in the 
same manner. Every sportsman knows how difficult 
it is to get within gunshot of a large flock of these 
birds, though they appear to be so busily employed 
in picking up their food in a meadow, that it might 
be supposed they saw nothing else. 
The fact is, they very often do see nothing, and 
think of nothing, beyond the food they are in search 
of; because, on the bough of some neighbouring tree, 
a good look out is kept by one of the party, and the 
moment this sentinel Crow or Rook gives out his well- 
known caw of alarm, or the Fieldfare its peculiar jar- 
ring cry, aw T ay go the main body, beyond the reach of 
the fowler, who thought he could escape observation 
by lurking behind a tree, or stealing under a hedge- 
bank. A person familiar with the notes of birds 
has no difficulty whatever in distinguishing between 
the sounds of pleasure and alarm. If he hears the 
Swallows screaming in a certain note, he is as well 
aware that cats or hawks are about, as if they could 
tell him so in common language. We once happened 
to hear a loud outcry amongst a parcel of Sparrows, 
Tomtits, and Chaffinches; the noise was evidently 
not their usual note of pleasure, neither was it the 
clamorous scream they utter when fighting. The 
bustle occurred within a yard of our window, too 
near for a Hawk to venture ; neither was there a cat 
within sight, — nothing of the sort; but still the din 
increased, and the bush shook again with flutterings 
of wings, and clacking of tongues : when, at last, we 
espied a pair of inquisitive eyes, and a little sharp 
snout poked out from the twigs, at the bottom of the 
bush. It was a weasel, which, on seeing that it was 
