POWER TO EXPRESS THOUGHT 29 



tures of peace from her mate. As the deadlock seemed 

 hkely to continue I departed. 



" Two days later I was round again, eager to see 

 how the difference had been settled, if at all. To my 

 great surprise, I must confess, the male bird had given 

 way to the female, and the nearly completed nest was 

 on her chosen site. A close examination of the two 

 places showed that the judgment of the male had been 

 at fault. Where he had erred was in not detecting 

 the presence of mice ; it was quite impossible for these 

 destructive little animals to reach the spot selected by 

 the hen." 



Here, then, is a case of the cock having selected one 

 site and the hen another. Had they gone about 

 choosing a site in company and disagreed upon the 

 place, it is hardly likely that the cock would for some 

 time have taken no notice of what the hen was doing ; 

 he would surely have set his foot down at once. The 

 fact that at first he took no notice seems to show that 

 at the outburst of what I may perhaps call the fury 

 of nest-building the cock had eyes for nothing but his 

 work. Again, when the cock did assert his authority, 

 he apparently did not argue with the hen. He simply 

 knocked her and her handiwork off the ledge — a rude 

 but forcible, if inarticulate, method of expressing his 

 feelings. 



It may be asked, how was it that the birds agreed 

 to the change of site if they were not able to com- 

 municate with one another ? Here, again, we must 

 wander into the field of conjecture. It must suffice 

 that it is possible to explain the change of tactics of 



