This spring we had a blackbird's nest in some ivy near the house, and
many times each day the cock bird came to watch over his household,
and discourse sweet music from a neighbouring tree. A pair of jays
however appeared, and seemed too much interested in the nest for the
parents' comfort, approaching so near one morning that first the cock
blackbird, and then the hen attacked them; and though they returned
again during the day, evidently bent on mischief, the courageous
parents eventually drove them from the field, and they were seen no
more. Owing to the cutting of great fir woods in the Forest for timber
supplies for the war, jays have become much more common here than
formerly, and seem to have migrated from their former haunts and taken
to the beeches and oaks in the undisturbed woods.
Birds as a rule are not well represented in books, though the drawing
is more correct than the colouring. Examine Randolph Caldecott's _Sing
a Song for Sixpence_ for a really clever sketch of the four and twenty
blackbirds, every one a characteristic likeness, and a different
attitude; and look at his rookery in _Bracebridge Hall_, where, in
three sketches he shows some equally exact rooks.
I always walked when on my farming rounds, for one of the first
lessons I learned at Alton was that for that purpose "one walk is
better than three rides.
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