290 THE BIRD WATCHER 
known it trouble abé@t an absent parent whilst it had 
one by it. I have never, that I remember, seen the 
chick seek to be fed before one or other of its dams 
had flown in with a fish, and I attribute the anxiety 
which this one showed to reach the bird in question, 
to its distress at finding itself in so precarious a 
situation. In this, however, I may be wrong, but 
since it is beyond doubt that one stranger bird 
caressed the chick, it is not very essential to prove 
that another did. The likelihood is that one would 
be as willing to as another, and I did, indeed, notice 
that all the birds on the ledge to which the chick was 
brought back, seemed to take a kindly interest in it, 
especially another white-eyed one, which the mother 
several times drove away from it—being jealous, as 
I suppose. The state of affairs appeared to me to be 
this, that all the birds had a tender feeling towards the 
chick, that the chick, if left to itself; was inclined to 
go to any one of them, and that whatever one it did 
go to was ready to jode/ over it, and caress it. Not 
having been able to note down every little thing at the 
time, I cannot now give the general evidence on 
which this impression was founded, but I have re- 
counted the special incidents. 
An interesting question arises here—at least it 
seems interesting to me. Is the conduct that we 
have been considering the result of mistake or con- 
fusion on the part of either the grown birds or the 
chick—or of both of them—or does it spring from an 
extension of sympathy in the one, and of Kinderliede, 
