246 WAGTAILS AND PIPITS 



in her bill, conspicuous both from its size and the way in which 

 the white entrails extrude from one or another of the tightly-gripped 

 abdomens. Nothing can be more horrid than this scene, if closely 

 followed, and beheld in its true essential colours. The wagtail, 

 indeed, is pleased and happy, and a pretty little bird, withal. Also 

 she is under the full sway of that maternal instinct which is thought 

 to be so beautiful a thing but, to satisfy it, hundreds of weaker 

 creatures are being robbed of their existence. Now, when the tigress 

 would initiate her growing cubs into the mystery of procuring food 

 for themselves, she partially disables some animal either by breaking 

 one of its legs, or dislocating a shoulder, or tearing open the flank, 

 or by hamstringing and then leaves it to them. Sitting, or lying 

 couched a little apart, and, no doubt, purring with supreme happiness, 

 she watches her darlings, as, with bloodthirsty fury, they try their 

 "prentice bans," and teeth, on the unfortunate creature. 1 This, too, is 

 maternal love, and it is exercised upon beings who probably feel 

 physical pain as much, or almost as much, as ourselves. If, therefore, 

 insects do not, that is accidental, merely, so that little consolation 

 is to be drawn from that circumstance by the philosophic mind that, 

 seeing the same unpitying law applied to the highest and lowliest 

 organisms, recognises that 



" All are but parts of one atrocious whole." 



The way in which the wagtail and many another bird is thus 

 able to catch insect after insect, whilst holding an ever-increasing 

 heap of them in the beak, is wonderful. I have tried to see how it 

 is done, but if any special art or trick belongs to it, I have not 

 been able to discover this. In the case of the puffin, where a similar 

 problem is raised, the action of the tongue has been suggested as 

 solving the mystery. It might be equally employed by the wagtail, 

 but I do not think so, or at least I do not suppose it to be necessary. 



1 All this has been deduced with tolerable certainty from the " sign " which the tigress has 

 left of her presence near by, together with that of the cubs at the " kill" and the state of the 

 dead animal, a photograph of which latter, bearing signs of great pain in the facial expression, 

 has, in one instance, been taken. 



