favourite spot with me. One evening, just before sunset, as I lingered
near it, a pied wagtail darted out of some low scrub at my feet and
fluttered, as if wounded, over the turf for a space of ten or twelve
yards before flying away. Not many minutes after seeing the wagtail, a
reed-bunting--a bird which I had not previously observed on the
common--flew down and alighted on a bush a few yards from me, holding a
white crescent-shaped grub in its beak. I stood still to watch it,
certainly not expecting to see its nest and young; for, as a rule, a
bird with food in its beak will sit quietly until the watcher loses
patience and moves away; but on this occasion I had not been standing
more than ten seconds before the bunting flew down to a small tuft of
furze and was there greeted by the shrill, welcoming cries of its young.
I went up softly to the spot, when out sprang the old bird I had seen,
but only to drop to the ground just as the wagtail had done, to beat the
turf with its wings, then to lie gasping for breath, then to flutter on
a little further, until at last it rose up and flew to a bush.

After admiring the reed-bunting's action, I turned to the dwarf bush
near my feet, and saw, perched on a twig in its centre, a solitary young
bird, fully fledged but not yet capable of sustained flight. He did not
recognise an enemy in me; on the contrary, when I approached my hand to
him, he opened his yellow mouth wide, in expectation of being fed,
although his throat was crammed with caterpillars, and the white
crescent-shaped larva I had seen in the parent's bill was still lying in
his mouth unswallowed. The wonder is that when a young bird had been
stuffed with food to such an extent just before sleeping time, he can
still find it in him to open his mouth and call for more.

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