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Watching the line of the hedge, about every two minutes, either near at hand or yonder a bird darts out just at the level of the grass, hovers a second with labouring wings, and returns as swiftly to the cover. Sometimes it is a flycatcher, sometimes a greenfinch, or chaffinch, now and then a robin, in one place a shrike, perhaps another is a redstart.
The greenfinch and the chaffinch shrieked with derision; the wood-pigeon turned his back, and said "Pooh!" and went off with a clatter. The sparrow flew to tell his mates on the house, and you could hear the chatter they made about it, right down at the brook.
To this writer, then and there are others to keep him in countenance the greenfinch as a vocalist ranks lower than the lowest.
Saying which, they pecked and buffeted old Shoutnight to such a degree that he was glad to shuffle off to his hole behind the ivied chimney-stack. All this while the cry kept coming out of the cedar, "Cuckoo! cuckoo!" "It's Dutch," said a greenfinch, looking very knowing. "No, it isn't; he comes from Spain, I know," said the goldfinch. "Chiswick, Chiswick," shouted the sparrow.
In listening to one the other day for about a quarter of an hour, I heard it give three notes of the Swallow, two of the Martin, and two of the Spring-Wagtail; and in addition, notes of the House- Sparrow, Whinchat, Starling, Chaffinch, Whitethroat, Greenfinch, Little Redpole, and Whin-Linnet, besides the notes of half-a-dozen birds which I did not know; at least, a reasoning from analogy would induce me to think them imitations, and I have no right to suppose they were not because I did not happen to recognize them.
Besides the animals already named, the colonists have introduced ferrets and weasels, to reduce the destructive excess of the imported rabbits; and they, whilst failing to subdue the rabbits, have themselves become a serious nuisance. Of small birds there were introduced the house-sparrow, which is too prolific, and is hated by the farmers; the greenfinch, a pest; the bullfinch, a failure.
The green-finch that beautiful-winged Mrs Gummidge among birds is also abundant, and slips down nervously every now and then among the groundsel in the unweeded garden. I confess the greenfinch has all my sympathy, but it rather bores me. What the deuce is it worrying about? There is no poetry in its lamentation only a sort of habitual formula of a poor, lorn woman.
There are billions of insects to be had for the mere asking. The fly-catcher knows this. He can spend an hour at a meal without ever flying more than ten yards from his bough. Still, one rejoices in the energy of the swift. One wishes the greenfinch had a little of it.
If a breeze rustled the boughs, if a greenfinch called, if the cart-mare in the meadow shook herself, making the earth and air tremble by her with the convulsion of her mighty muscles, these were not sounds, they were the silence itself. So sensitive to it as I was, in its turn it held me firmly, like the fabled spells of old time.
Again, in addition to the shriek of the Martin, there was the note which it utters when on the wing in pursuit of its food. There was also the chirrup of the Greenfinch, and the whee, whee, whee which is the climax of the Linnet's song, by which it is so irresistible as a call-bird, and which appears to bring down the flock in spite of themselves.
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