Nature Book Reader June 2020 - Flipbook - Page 41
should have hardly believed
but that it had been a locusta
whispering in the bushes.
The country people laugh
when you tell them that it is
the note of a bird. It is a most
artful creature, skulking the
thickest part of a bush; and
will sing at a yard distance,
provided it be concealed. I
was obliged to get a person
to go on the other side of the
hedge where it haunted; and
then it would run, creeping
like a mouse, before us for
a hundred yards together,
through the bottom of the
thorns; yet it would not
come into fair sight: but in
the morning early, and when
undisturbed, it sings on the
top of a twig, gaping and
shivering with its wings.”
Further Reading
Food For Free
by Richard Mabey
* Grasshopper-lark is now what
we call the Grasshopper Warbler
In A Green Shade
by Richard Mabey
41
