AND OTHER BIRDS 183 



nesting community, stealing is all prevalent, and 

 after an hour almost ceases to attract attention. 



I have seen a bird take up in his bill, eggs, 

 jDresumably from a strange nest, and with a 

 slight movement of his head cast them aside. 

 He then, I remember, proceeded on his way ; but 

 as this happened immediately after landing, 

 there was so great a confusion and so much of 

 interest to follow that, taking my eye for a 

 moment off this particular bird, I lost him in 

 the crowd. 



Then again, I saw a bird ransack his next door 

 neighbour's nest. In it there were little helpless 

 jet black, naked chicks. No kind of pity was 

 shown them. Their bedding was not taken a bit 

 here and a bit there, but borne oif in huge greedy 

 mouthfuls, until the wretched nestlings were 

 finally left bare on the sun-beaten top of their 

 coprolitic pile. But I think the evil propensities 

 of the race were even more markedly shown in 

 a third case. The sinner was evidently, from his 

 size, an old bird and one of the so-called dark 

 ''pink-footed" species. The tardiness of his 

 every action gave him a double air of sobriety. 

 He might have been an elder of the Kirk in his 

 "blacks," yet he paused to rummage over a 

 whole nest for a pitiful bit of dirty stick, and 

 then hopped still very slowly from tier to tier 

 of the rows of nests vacated, in the immediate 

 proximitv of the camera. I think it was the 

 deliberation of each downward hop and the 

 shamelessness of the paltry theft, so open and 

 so bra/en — a penny stolen from the plate — that 

 emphasized the cold depravity and passionless 

 sin of the old bird. I do not know but that the 

 wickedness of the action was increased when the 



