BIRDS. 107 



soft-billed birds, with a broader belief in the almost un- 

 limited capacity shown by birds in adapting themselves 

 to any diet that offers. They are, in fact, like many 

 mammals, omnivorous ; though this does not of course 

 preclude them from having special fancies. Nor is there 

 any need to seek such far-away instances as the much- 

 quoted carnivorous kea of New Zealand. It is only 

 necessary to suspend a lump of suet or half a cocoa-nut 

 from a tree and watch how in a little every titmouse 

 within call will soon be clinging to it and pecking eagerly 

 at what can scarcely be its natural food.^ So, too, the 

 so-called insectivorous birds devour at certain seasons 

 great quantities of grain and fruit; and gulls, that live 

 normally on fish and flotsam, are seen hawking after 

 mice and insects, and will, if kept inland, kill and devour 

 every small bird that comes within reach. Some birds 

 swallow certain substances, grit usually, to assist digestion. 

 The habit of swallowing its own feathers, noticed, among 

 others, in the grebe, is probably a case in point. 



Birdnesting has at all times been a favourite recreation 

 with schoolboys, and not a few of their elders have, from 



more scientific motives, also amassed consid- 

 Nest . 



erable collections of eggs. In these days of 



decrease of wild birds, it is just as well that laws should 

 be enacted and enforced against the practice ; but, for the 

 benefit of those who may find themselves in newer lands 

 with no such restrictions, it may be as well to point out 

 that there is birdnesting and birdnesting ; and in earlier 

 days I got together a collection of over three hundred 

 representative British eggs without, I am perfectly certain, 

 causing a single bird to desert, and without disturbing a 

 single open nest. The collection was the result of several 

 years' work in very different localities — in Kent, Hamp- 

 shire, Cornwall, North Germany, and Tuscany. One egg 



1 White pointed out a parallel case in the fondness of the cat for 

 fish, which it could not catch for itself. This gave his numerous 

 editors an opening for anecdotes. 



