s he kept still on the dark ground where the snow had been swept
away--and earth and grass mingled almost to a black whole against the
white--he was practically invisible. This was because of his peculiar
somber color. Had he been light of dress, like an ordinary
song-thrush, any eye could have picked him up in that spot.

Now, that kestrel was in a bad temper and vicious. She was cursing the
snow which covered the doings of the field-mice, which ordinarily were
her "staff of life"; and she had not killed since dawn. Hence she was
a public danger, even to wild-folk she usually left alone, and just now
she was looking for our thrush, who she had seen fly down and--vanish.

There he was, however, bang in the open, unshielded by any cover,
motionless on one leg, looking upwards, and, to all intents and
purposes, not there. The kestrel came shooting up superbly, going at a
great pace on the wind, cutting the cold air like a knife, twisting and
turning her long tail tins way and that, but moving her quarter-shut
wings not one stroke. Right over him she dived, her wonderful eyes
stabbing down, so close that you could see her small, rounded head
turning and craning. But no thrush did she see. She "banked," hung,
swept round, and came back. Then she hovered, like a bird hung from
the sky by an invisible hair; and for our thrush she was indeed the
sword of Damocles, for the spot in the air where she hung was directly
over him. If anybody had shot her dead at that instant, she would have
fallen upon his back. At that instant, or the next, she might fall
upon his back, anyway, without anybody shooting her. Indeed, the
betting seemed a good few hundred to one that she would.

Very few human beings know the full meaning of the word "still"--not
even bluejackets!--but most of the wild-folk do. They have to. So did
the thrush, but never before had he kept so utterly, stonily, frozenly,
strickenly motionless. If he had moved an eyelid even, winked, or
gulped too hard, it would have been all up with him. But he didn't and
it was not all up; though the kestrel seemed as if she were going to
hover there, in that spot, through all eternity. And when at last she
condescended to surrender to the wind and vanish like a falling star
into the horizon, our friend was as near nervous prostration and
hysteria as a bird can be. A very little longer and I believe he would
actually have died from sheer overstrain, instead of from k