. The story of hedgerow and pond . Hedgerow Life unless it is already there provided by-accident. Perhaps you may not know that anybirds do nest in holes underground, butquite a number of them do so. A re-treat underneath the ground, and socompletely out of sight, forms a very safeplace when a bird is sitting on its eggs,and thereby more exposed to danger ;and It is especially taken advantage ofby birds which have very brilliant orvery conspicuous plumage—puffins, forinstance, sheldrakes, kingfishers. Butthe consequence is, that when by chancean enemy does invade their burrow, theyare caught i
. The story of hedgerow and pond . Hedgerow Life unless it is already there provided by-accident. Perhaps you may not know that anybirds do nest in holes underground, butquite a number of them do so. A re-treat underneath the ground, and socompletely out of sight, forms a very safeplace when a bird is sitting on its eggs,and thereby more exposed to danger ;and It is especially taken advantage ofby birds which have very brilliant orvery conspicuous plumage—puffins, forinstance, sheldrakes, kingfishers. Butthe consequence is, that when by chancean enemy does invade their burrow, theyare caught in a trap, and are unable toescape; as when a snake or lizard entersa bee-eaters burrow, and swallowswhole the poor bird and its eggs. Besides the generally more or less. Hedgerow Life conspicuous front door of the rabbit,there is, as I have just said, always asmaller hole for safety, called a bolt-hole, and this is often in some inconspicu-ous place, such as under a spray ofbramble, or amid some nettles. And most other animals do the samething ; they appear to be able to lookahead and provide for the future betterthan birds. For instance, mice, squirrels,dormice, and many other animals (ormammals) get together a store of foodfor the winter. But very few birds dothis. The butcher-bird—or the red-backed shrike, to give it its full propername—will hang up birds and insectsfor next day. The rook will bury acorns—but I never heard of one rememberingwhere it had put them. And the jack-daw and raven will hide things away75 Hedgerow Life which are of no use to them. These lastthree are about the cleverest of all thebirds, and are supposed to be at the topof the tree in the bird world. If there is the variety we havenoticed in the beginning of the year,
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, booksubjectbirds, booksubjectwat
