52 LONDON BIRDS 



the traditions of the great Megstone colony of Cor- 

 morants, the ninety or more nests on the rock must be 

 cleared; and the pinioned exiles in St. James's Park, 

 driven by blind hereditary impulse, did to their help- 

 less, late-born nestling as their kindred on the distant 

 Northumberland coast were not improbably doing at 

 the very same time to hundreds of well-grown birds of 

 the year, hatched weeks before the little Londoner. 



Instinct may seem at times to approach reason very 

 closely, but there is a gulf fixed between the two 

 which pure science has not yet found the way to bridge. 



Penguins, according to Captain Borchgrevinck of the 

 Southern Cross, turn their young adrift in an even 

 more brutally cold-blooded way. When the old birds 

 think they have put up long enough with the almost 

 intolerable nuisance of having to pick out their babies 

 from the ruck of thousands on the ' triangular pro- 

 mentory' of Cape Adare, and cram them from their 

 own crops like Hop-o'-my-thumb's parents they go 

 out for a walk some fine morning and never come 

 home again. The forsaken young ones grow thinner 

 and thinner for a few days, until, when accumulated 

 blubber is exhausted, and starvation stares them in the 

 face, they realise the position and brace themselves for 

 the effort to go to sea and work for their own living. 



The next year marked a step in advance in the 

 education of the St. James's Park Cormorant. Instinc- 

 tively conscious that she was not a Great Auk or Puffin, 

 Avith maternal longings to be satisfied with an annual 

 brood (jf one, the poor bird did her best to respond to 



