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The day before, a warbler had sat on the same branch which the yellow-throat now invaded, and the hummer not only did not offer to molest him, but flew away himself. These inconsistencies made it hard to draw any inference from his behavior. During my whole stay he did not once go to the apple-tree, although, for want of anything better to do, I again scrutinized its branches.
Can you blame me if I doubt you in other respects?" "Sonnez donc la trompette, Et battez les tambours!" And the warbler nodded significantly at Madame, whose frown grew still darker. "Eh! Monsieur," cried the Colonel, with a protesting hand, "you are out of tune!" "I should like to know why you returned here," said Madame. "Either you have some plan, or your audacity has no bounds."
The chiff-chaff, the common warbler of this moorland district, was now abundant, more so than anywhere else in England; two or three were flitting about among the alder leaves within a few feet of my head, and a dozen at least were singing within hearing, chiff-chaffing near and far, their notes sounding strangely loud at that still, sequestered spot.
Of these the Kentucky warbler is by far the most interesting, though quite rare. I meet with him in low, damp places in the woods, usually on the steep sides of some little run. I hear at intervals a clear, strong, bell-like whistle or warble, and presently catch a glimpse of the bird as he jumps up from the ground to take an insect or worm from the under side of a leaf.
Low under his breath he was snarling when he went on. Hatred, for a moment, had flamed hot in his soul. Then he turned, and buried himself in a clump of balsams that reached out into the plain, and a few moments later came to the edge of a tiny meadow in the heart of them, where a warbler was bursting its throat in evening-song.
Everybody is talking about the concert, and inquiring about our 'warbler. Those handbills were the greatest success. Not whistle, indeed, when the crowd will be there on purpose to hear her. Why, mother, she is the chief attraction! Where is she? I'll show her very soon that she can't back out. They would mob us if she failed to appear. Why, I couldn't go either if she did not."
"It's my opinion," he went on, "that Grandfather Mole has eaten all the worms that lived in the ground; and now he's hoping to find some in the air." Although everybody laughed at such a notion, the Worm-eating Warbler declared that he had a right to his own belief.
Such freaks as these, however, are different from the linnet's Mary Ware, inasmuch as they are certainly the idiosyncrasies of single birds, not a part of the artistic proficiency of the species as a whole. During this month I was lucky enough to close a little question which I had been holding open for a number of years concerning our very common and familiar black-throated green warbler.
So great is the number of species of warbler which either visit India every winter or remain always in the country, so small and insignificant in appearance are these birds, so greatly do they resemble one another, and so similar are their habits, that even the expert ornithologist cannot identify the majority of them unless, having the skin in one hand and a key to the warblers in the other, he sets himself thinking strenuously.
D'Arcy," I said, "you are harbouring the greatest little impostor in the British Islands. I am the mere mocking-bird of one of the most cultivated women living. My true note is that of a simple Welsh bird." "A Welsh warbler," he said, with a smile, "but who was the original of the impostor?" "Miss Dalrymple," I said. "Miss Dalrymple, the writer! why I knew her years ago before you were born."
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