30 ODD HOURS WITH NATURE 



animal capable of experiencing that emotion, and 

 if so, it furnishes material for a new definition, 

 capable of putting him in a class by himself. 

 Most of the others, as in these learned days, every- 

 body knows, have broken down. 



One who searches the bird world for other 

 manifestations of unfastidiousness will not have 

 to go far to find them. What could be daintier 

 than a tit feeding from a cut cocoanut or a sus- 

 pended lump of firm fat? Nothing, unless it be 

 another tit. But if instead of a cocoanut you 

 hang up a dead dog, which has begun to "go 

 wrong," the tit will appreciate the treat equally 

 well. It is just nourishment to him, and he is 

 serenely undisturbed by the fact that chemical or 

 bacteriological processes are liberating gases which 

 do not have the same smell as ozone. There is 

 no daintiness about his senses, and for all the 

 difference a good high odour makes to him, he 

 might be without the sense of smell. He has 

 his own sense of beauty ; he knows that his 

 plumage looks very fine, and his mate is reputed 

 to have so nice a sense of colour and arrange- 

 ment that she chooses her husband on the strength 

 of the superiority of a shade. But neither is 

 repelled by ugly things. 



The sea-gull's happiness in the manured field 

 has been referred to. The fascination exercised 

 over him by the exit of a city drain is known to 

 all who happen to live in a town on river or 

 sea. There the wild and romantic seamew may 

 be seen every day of the year breasting the current 

 where it is nastiest, and not to be tempted away to 



