“See who’s down there? I say, everybody, look! There’s that wretched white dog again! Remember what a perfect nuisance he was last August, when we’d just got the youngsters out of the nest? We were afraid every moment lest he would start to climb the trees like their old cat used to. Hi! there, you on the barn-roof! Have you heard the news?” Shriek, shriek! chatter, chatter, chatter! So they go on for hours at a time.
Then policeman-robin arrives. “What’s all this noise about?” he demands, from the post of the gate leading into the upper orchard. “Oh, good gracious! it’s that horrid white dog again! Nearly shoved his nose right into our nest in the woodruff bank last year! Chit! chit! chit! But don’t you worry, my dear” (this to the lady he has just married); “I’ll drive him away; you can trust to me,” and he flicks his conceited little tail, and flies to the top of a tree stump near by, still calling out his “Chit! chit! chit!” in severe reprimand.
Next the blackbird, hunting for a little fresh meat among the grey, mossed-over stones that edge the garden beds, raises his head and cranes his neck above the overhanging heart’s-ease trails, and the foliage of the pinks, to see what the commotion is all about.
“I say, Martha!” (to the demure body in brown, who has been meekly tracking along behind him), “there’s that terror of a dog again! Recollect when he was here last year? Never a chance to enjoy a snail in peace; before you’d given the shell more than one tap on the stone, down he’d rush. Here he comes now! Slip along quick to the laurels. I say, that was a near shave! Chut! chut! chut! Go away! What business have you to come here disturbing respectable old inhabitants like us?”
And so the hubbub continues, while the small white dog with the brown ears trots in a business-like manner all over the place, making sure that every corner-stone, and bush, and gate-post is just where he left it last time. And having ascertained that the universe is still intact, he sets off to a particular spot in the lower orchard, sniffs about till he finds the identical tuft of grass he is searching for; whereupon he eats, and eats, at the long green blades, much in the same way as we fall on the young lettuces, or the black currants, or whatever else may be in season when we come down. Though why this particular tuft of grass should be the only one he selects out of the acres and acres at his disposal, is always a mystery to us. Yet he never forgets it; straight for that small patch in the middle of the big orchard he makes, once he has done his tour of inspection round the estate.
Before I have been in the house half-an-hour, I start making overtures to the birds, and they immediately respond. I proceed by way of the bird-board.
This may need explanation.
Outside one of the living-room windows I have established a board that projects about a foot beyond the wide window-ledge. At first I had it resting on the window-ledge, but I found that the birds were down out of sight, when they came up to feed, hidden by the sash and window-frame. Therefore I had it raised to bring it exactly on a level with the glass. It is fixed securely on supports, so that it won’t blow away, neither would a flock of jays and wood-pigeons overbalance it. A couple of stout bits of tree branches have been fixed upright at the sides; these are very popular, as they make the board look less bare, more tree-like and familiar to the birds. They love to alight on a branch, before going down to feed, and they often return to the branch when they have eaten their fill, saucing their relations and daring them to touch a morsel of the food, which each bird seems to consider its own exclusive property! Strips of narrow lath have been nailed to the outside edges of the board, projecting about an inch above the level of the board. This wooden rim saves the food from rolling off, or blowing away too easily; it also gives the birds a little perch that they love to stand on while they run their eyes over the menu.