2i6 BIRD LIFE GLIMPSES 



he turns and zigzags about, as does a fly-catcher, and 

 certainly seems to be doing so. There is the attempt, 

 at least, and would he attempt what he was not equal 

 to ? I have no doubt, myself, that he performs this 

 feat, and yet what a wonderful feat it is ! Both 

 birds now feed the young — for the female has been 

 collecting, for some time, again. Now, instead of, or 

 besides, flies, each bird has in its bill a number of 

 long, slender, white things, which hang down on each 

 side of it, and must, I think, be grubs of some sort, 

 though 1 do not know what. But stay — beneficence 

 again ! — are they — not flies in their entirety indeed, 

 but — oh optimism and general satisfactoriness ! — fly 

 entrails, protruding, bursting, hanging, forced out by 

 the cruel beak ? Yes, that is it, it is plain now — too 

 plain — and some of the flies are moving. I have 

 seen a wasp tear open and devour a bluebottle — a 

 savage sight — and it looked something the same. 

 But all hail, maternal afl^ection ! — and appetite ! to 

 bring in the wasp. "Banquo and Macbeth, all hail ! " 

 I believe that most birds that feed their young 

 with insects brought in the bill, collect them in this 

 way. Indeed the habit is common throughout the 

 bird-world, and may be observed, equally, in the 

 blackbird or thrush, with worms, and in the puflin, 

 with fish — in this last case, perhaps, we see the feat 

 in its perfection. The smallest of our woodpeckers 

 I have watched bringing cargo after cargo of live, 

 struggling things to his hole, but the green wood- 

 pecker, for a reason which, for aught I know, I 

 shall be the first to make known, does not do this. 

 From behind some bushes which quite hid me, and 

 which commanded the nest, I have watched the 



