A still more accomplished mimic, a lemon-crested cockatoo, reproduced the voices of little hungry pigs.  He lived indoors on a stand over a tray, with a chain round one leg, and was very clever at mounting and descending by the combined use of beak and claws, without complicating himself with his chain.  He got loose one day, and ascended one of the chestnut trees, and a volunteer went up after him by a ladder.  Cocky resented his interference, flew at him and bit his finger to the bone.  His beak was a very powerful weapon, and, until I made him a new tray with a zinc-covered ledge, he demolished any unprotected wood or even furniture within reach.

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.”  My predecessor being a hunting man and fond of horses, generally rode, but for careful observation, especially in the matter of plant diseases, one wants to “potter about” with a magnifying glass sometimes, and of course in entomology and ornithology there is no room for a horse.  One of the remarks made by my men about me on my arrival was, “His mother larned him to walk,” with quite a note of admiration to emphasize it.  It is really remarkable how farmers and country people scorn the idea of walking either for pleasure or business, if “a lift” can be had.  I was at Cheltenham with a brother, and finding we had done our business in good time, we decided to walk to the next station—­Cleeve—­instead of waiting for the train at Cheltenham.  We asked a native the way, who replied with great contempt, “Cleeve station?  Oh, I wouldn’t walk to Cleeve to save tuppence!”