WAR AND WEAPONS AMONG THE BIRDS. 68 
than fighting; for: no true song bird is specially 
armed, if we except the adaptations of the beak in 
shrikes. 
Audubon notes that the yellow-shafted wood- 
pecker (flicker) never fights his rival, but depends 
upon antics, chuckles, ete., to win his mate; but he is 
a vigorous defender of his nesting hole when he is at 
home. 
We can not go into various forms of battle among 
the birds. In many it has degenerated into mere 
bluff; others fight ridiculously. Audubon notes that 
snipes and woodcocks push each other around harm- 
lessly with their long beaks. While many song birds 
fight vigorously, others simply vie with each other in 
a sort of musical rivalry, as we shall see later, sub- 
stituting music for war and showing a tendency 
toward a cultured form of arbitration. 
In others battle is mere chase, the bird on his 
home tree having the best conscience and the intruder 
the poorest. Repeated evidences of this exhibition 
of how “conscience makes cowards of us all” may be 
observed daily when different species of birds nest 
near each other—an instance again of morals well 
braced by retribution low down among the brutes. 
In others the battle consists in the mere sham of 
pretension, as they inflate themselves, and take on 
terrifying attitudes. In other creatures there is found 
a form of protection, wherein by color, shape, pose or 
gesture a harmless animal will mimic one that is dan- 
gerous or disgusting, thereby gaining safety. But, so 
far as known, there is nothing like a terrifying mim- 
