82 ADVENTURES AMONG BIRDS 



rest and together move like one being. Those who first 

 saw it could hardly credit the evidence of their own 

 senses, but in a short time they became convinced that 

 this amazing thing had come to pass that those two 

 ill-assorted beings had actually become companions. 



How can we explain it? The swan, we have seen, 

 was in a state of misery at his isolation and doubtless 

 ready to attach himself to and find a solace in the com- 

 pany of any living creature on land or in the water, and 

 a fish happened to be the only creature there. But 

 how about the trout? I can only suppose that he got 

 some profit out of the partnership, that the swan when 

 feeding by the margin accidently fed the trout by shak- 

 ing small insects into the water, and that in this way 

 the swan became associated with food in what we are 

 pleased to call the trout's mind. The biologist denies 

 that it — the poor fish — has a mind at all, since it has 

 no cortex to its brain, but we need not trouble ourselves 

 with this question just now. I also think it possible 

 that the swan may have touched or stroked the back 

 of his strange friend with his beak, just as one swan 

 would carecs another swan, and that this contact was 

 grateful to the trout. Fish have as much delight in 

 being gently stroked as other creatures that wear a skin 

 or scales. I have picked up many "wild worms in 

 woods" and many a wild toad, if wild toads there be, 

 and have quickly overcome their wildness and made them 

 contented to be in my hands by gently stroking them 

 on the back. 



The sequel remains to be told. There came to the 



