and confidence in us; and even at night when I would go out to where most of our wild birds roosted, in the trees and bushes growing in a vast old chalk-pit close to the cottage, and called "Blackie," instantly there would be a response--a softly chuckled note, like a sleepy "Good-night," thrown back to me out of the darkness. {275} [Sidenote: Cirl bunting] During the spell of rough weather which brought us the blackbird, my interest was centred in the cirl buntings. On 4th August, I was surprised to find that they were breeding again in the little sweetbriar hedge, and had three fledglings about a week old in the nest. They had on this occasion gone from the west to the east side of the cottage, and the new nest, two to three feet from the ground, was placed in the centre of a small tangle of sweet-briar, bramble, and bryony, within a few yards of the trunk of the big lime tree under which I was accustomed to sit. I had this nest under observation until 9th August, which happened to be the worst day, the coldest, wettest, and windiest of all that wintry spell; and yet in such weather the young birds came out of their cradle. For a couple of days they remained near the nest concealed among some low bushes; then the whole family moved away to a hedge at some distance on higher ground, and there I watched the old birds for some days feeding their young on grasshoppers. The result of my observations on these birds and on three other pairs which I found breeding close by--one in the village, another just outside of it, and the third by the thorn-grown foundation of ruined Abbotstone not far off--came as a surprise to me; for it appeared that the cirl in its breeding habits and language was not like other buntings, nor indeed like any other bird. The young hatched out of the curiously marked or "written" eggs are like those of the yellowhammer, black as moor-hen {276} chicks in their black down, opening wide crimson mouths to be fed. But should the parent birds, or one of them, be watching you at the nest, they will open not their beaks, but hearing and obeying the warning note they lie close as if glued to the bottom of the nest. It is a curious sound. Unless one knows it, and the cause of it, one may listen a long time and not discover the bird that utters it. The buntings sit as usual, motionless and unseen among the leaves of the tree, and, so long as you are near the nest, keep up the sound, an excessively sharp metallic chirp, uttered in turns by both birds, but always a short note in the female, and a double note in the male, the second one prolonged to a wail or squeal. No other bird has an alarm or warning note like it: it is one of those very high sounds that are easily missed by the hearing, like the robin's fine-drawn wail when in trouble about his young; but when you catch and listen to it the effect on the brain is somewhat distressing. A Hampshire friend and