THE HERON : A FEATHERED NOTABLE 97 



seem an error at all. For example, a hawking 

 swallow may capture and try to bolt a wasp or 

 other dangerous insect without first killing or 

 crushing it, and in doing so receive a fatal sting 

 in the throat. The flight of hawking swallows and 

 swifts is so rapid that it hardly gives them time to 

 judge of the precise nature of the insect appearing 

 before them which a second's delay would lose. 

 This is seen in swallows and swifts so frequently 

 getting hooked by dry-fly anglers. Birds of prey, 

 too, occasionally meet their death in a similar way, 

 as when a kite or falcon or buzzard or eagle lifts 

 a stoat or weasel, and the lithe little creature 

 succeeds in wriggling up and fixing its teeth in the 

 bird's flesh. If they fall from a considerable 

 height both are killed. Again, birds sometimes get 

 killed by attempting to swallow too big a morsel, 

 and I think this is oftenest the case with birds 

 that have rather weak beaks and have developed 

 a rapacious habit. I remember once seeing a Guira 

 cuckoo with head hanging and wings drooping, 

 struggling in vain to swallow a mouse stuck fast 

 in its gullet, the tail still hanging from its beak. 

 Undoubtedly the bird perished, as I failed in my 

 attempts to capture it and save its life by pulling 

 the mouse out. A common tyrant-bird of South 

 America, Pitangus, preys on mice, small snakes, 

 lizards and frogs, as well as on large insects, but 

 invariably hammers its prey on a branch until it 

 is bruised to a pulp and broken up. It will work 

 at a mouse in this way until the skin is so bruised 



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