Birds of Town and Village | Page 8

he remained motionless, but the instant my attention wandered,
or when in speaking I looked at my companion, the sudden violent dash
at my head would be made.
I was assured by Melford that his birds never carried off and concealed
bright objects, a habit which it has been said the jay, as well as the
magpie, possesses.
"What would he do with this shilling if I tossed it to him?" I asked.
"Catch it," he returned. "It would simply be play to him, but he
wouldn't carry it off."
I tossed up the shilling, and the bird had perhaps expected me to do so,
as he deftly caught it just as a dog catches a biscuit when you toss one
to him. After keeping it a few moments in his beak, he put it down at
his side. I took out four more shilling pieces and tossed them quickly
one by one, and he caught them without a miss and placed them one by
one with the other, not scattered about, but in a neat pile. Then, seeing
that I had no more shillings he flew off.
After these few playful passages with one of his birds, I could
understand Melford's feeling about his free pet jays, magpies and
jackdaws; they were not merely birds to him, but rather like so many
delightful little children in the beautiful shape of birds.
* * *
There was no rookery in or near the village, but a large flock of rooks
were always to be seen feeding and sunning themselves in some level
meadows near the river. It struck me one day as a very fine sight, when
an old bird, who looked larger and blacker and greyer-faced than the
others, and might have been the father and leader of them all, got up on
a low post, and with wide-open beak poured forth a long series of most
impressive caws. One always wonders at the meaning of such displays.

Is the old bird addressing the others in the rook language on some
matter of great moment; or is he only expressing some feeling in the
only language he has--those long, hoarse, uninflected sounds; and if so,
what feeling? Probably a very common one. The rooks appeared happy
and prosperous, feeding in the meadow grass in that June weather, with
the hot sun shining on their glossy coats. Their days of want were long
past and forgotten; the anxious breeding period was over; the tempest
in the tall trees; the annual slaughter of the young birds--all past and
forgotten. The old rook was simply expressing the old truth, that life
was worth living.
These rooks were usually accompanied by two or three or more
crows--a bird of so ill-repute that the most out-and-out enthusiast for
protection must find it hard to say a word in its favour. At any rate, the
rooks must think, if they think at all, that this frequent visitor and
attendant of theirs is more kin than kind. I have related in a former
work that I once saw a peregrine strike down and kill an owl--a sight
that made me gasp with astonishment. But I am inclined to think of this
act as only a slip, a slight aberration, on the part of the falcon, so
universal is the sense of relationship among the kinds that have the
rapacious habit; or, at the worst, it was merely an isolated act of
deviltry and daring of the sharp-winged pirate of the sky, a sudden
assertion of over-mastering energy and power, and a very slight offence
compared with that of the crow when he carries off and devours his
callow little cousins of the rookery.
* * *
One of the first birds I went out to seek--perhaps the most medicinal of
all birds to see--was the kingfisher; but he was not anywhere on the
river margin, although suitable places were plentiful enough, and
myriads of small fishes were visible in the shallow water, seen at rest
like dim-pointed stripes beneath the surface, and darting away and
scattering outwards, like a flight of arrows, at any person's approach.
Walking along the river bank one day, when the place was still new to
me, I discovered a stream, and following it up arrived at a spot where a
clump of trees overhung the water, casting on it a deep shade. On the
other side of the stream buttercups grew so thickly that the glazed
petals of the flowers were touching; the meadow was one broad
expanse of brilliant yellow. I had not been standing half a minute in the

shade before the bird I had been seeking darted out from the margin,
almost beneath my feet, and then, instead of flying up or down stream,
sped like an arrow across the