ALTERNATING JOYS 213 



alone, is supposed to kiss. Birds, I assert, do, in the 

 proper and true meaning of the word, kiss, also, and 

 I believe that the origin of the custom has been the 

 same, or approximately ^ the same, in each instance. 

 To take food from one's mouth, and put it into 

 some one else's, is an act of attention, I believe, 

 amongst some savage tribes. 



I am not quite sure, now I come to think of it, 

 that the hen wagtail does do all the incubation — as 

 I said, some lines back, she did — but I think that 

 this is the case, as when I watched a pair I never 

 saw the two birds together, either at or near the 

 nest, and only once in the neighbourhood of it, 

 all the time the eggs were being hatched. The 

 nest, in this case, had been built, very prettily, 

 in the last year's one of a thrush, which it quite 

 filled, and which made a splendid cup for it. 

 It was interesting to see the hen bird at work. 

 Each time, after flying down from the ivied wall of 

 my garden, in which the nest was situated, she would 

 feed, a little, making little runs over the lawn, after 

 insects, with often a little fly, but just above the 

 grass, at the end of the little run, the tail still flirting 

 up and down. Then she would fly off for more 

 materials, appear on the lawn, again, in a few minutes, 

 with some in her bill, run, with them, to under the 

 wall, fly up into the ivy, and, upon coming out, go 

 through it all again. Thus, the wagtail makes build- 

 ing and eating alternate with one another, unlike 

 the house-martins, which build, says White, " only 

 in the morning, and dedicate the rest of the 



1 Something, that is to say, of a utilitariait nature. One should 

 watch monkeys also. 



