PERSONALITY IN BIRDS 213 



never feed together. Each takes its turn to mount 

 guard while the other crops the moist herbage at the 

 mere side, and with straight, up-drawn neck turns its 

 head now one way, now another, to forestall intrusion. 

 The much decried method of comparison with human 

 standards may yet help us to some solution. 



Each man has his own physical outlook upon the 

 world an outlook more uniform among men than 

 with birds. For one bird may be fifty times as 

 large as another, and yet to the largest of these 

 man still remains a monster for size. But a man 

 who should be fifty times larger than his fellows, 

 would have more occasion than they to apprehend 

 some creature yet again fifty times more monstrous 

 in size than he. So each bird has its own outlook 

 upon the world ; and the world of a small bird is a 

 small world, wherein danger ceases to be recognisable 

 beyond a radius of half a dozen yards. That is the 

 world of the Wrens, the Titmice, and their like. 



The Golden-crested Wren of the picture allowed 

 me to photograph her at a distance of a couple of 

 yards, although in order to do so, I had to raise the 

 ivy that screened the nest. The latter, composed 

 mainly of spiders' webs, lichen and moss, and lined 

 exclusively with small black feathers, was suspended 

 on bands of web passed over two of the stouter 

 twigs. The whole fabric was as soft as a piece of 

 old lace. Small as the nest was, the aperture was 

 still much smaller, and the bird itself so diminutive 

 that when sitting it was all but lost to sight. It 

 required of me only that I should not be abrupt in 

 my movements, and so long as I observed this 

 condition, its conduct suggested that while it was 



