BIRDS AT PLAY 75 



were older. A young dabchick I turned out 

 on the pond in the Calcutta Museum grounds 

 was very fond of playing practical jokes on 

 the ducks I kept there ; it would dive under 

 them, especially under any fresh one I turned 

 out, and, from the way in which the ducks 

 would jump and splash, it must have pinched 

 their toes ; but after a few months it gave 

 up this amusement. 



Then at the Zoo here they had, some years 

 ago, a young gull of a rare kind, Scoresby's 

 gull from South America. This bird used to 

 think it funny, when the other gulls were 

 sitting down and dozing with their bills 

 snugly tucked in their back-feathers, to rush 

 among them and wake them all up; but it 

 left off this amusement when it was in full 

 plumage. I ought to say that in neither of 

 these cases the bird was in the down, but in 

 its first feather dress ; it is at this time that 

 young birds are playful, for when they are 

 downy, like human babies, they are not old 

 enough to play properly, and of course those 

 kinds which live in nests and are helpless at 

 first could not do so even if the nest were 

 big enough to play in. 



