Magpie--birds who, by the by, when they suspect you
of any intention of shooting them, are as distant in their manners as
Cushats themselves, otherwise as impudent as Cockneys--would come,
hopping in continual tail-jerks, with his really beautiful plumage, if
one could bring oneself to think it so, and then sport the pensive
within twenty yards of the muzzle of Brown-Bess, impatient to let fly.
But our soul burned, our heart panted for a Cushat; and in that strong
fever-fit of passion, could we seek to slake our thirst for that wild
blood with the murder of a thievish eavesdropper of a Pye? The
Blackbird, too, often dropt out of the thicket into an open glade in the
hazel-shaws, and the distinctness of his yellow bill showed he was far
within shot-range. Yet, let us do ourselves justice, we never in all our
born days dreamt of shooting a Blackbird--him that scares away sadness
from the woodland twilight gloom, at morn or eve; whose anthem, even in
those dim days when Nature herself it might be well thought were
melancholy, forceth the firmament to ring with joy. Once "the snow-white
cony sought its evening meal," unconscious of our dangerous vicinity,
issuing with erected ears from the wood edge. That last was, we confess,
such a temptation to touch the trigger, that had we resisted it we must
have been either more or less than boy. We fired; and kicking up his
heels, doubtless in fright, but as it then seemed to us, during our
disappointment, much rather in frolic--nay, absolute derision--away
bounced Master Rabbit to his burrow, without one particle of soft
silvery wool on sward or bush, to bear witness to our unerring aim. As
if the branch on which he had been sitting were broken, away then went
the crashing Cushat through the intermingling sprays. The free flapping
of his wings was soon heard in the air above the tree-tops, and ere we
could recover from our almost bitter amazement, the creature was
murmuring to his mate on her shallow nest--a far-off murmur, solitary
and profound--to reach unto which, through the tangled mazes of the
forest, would have required a separate sense, instinct, or faculty,
which we did not possess. So, skulking out of our hiding-place, we made
no comment on the remark of homeward-plodding labourer, who had heard
the report, and now smelt the powder--"Cushats are geyan kittle birds to
kill"--but returned, with our shooting-bag as empty as our stomach, to
the Manse.

"Why do the birds sing