Some Habits and Instincts of Young Birds. 53 



a bee was given ; one of them seized and swallowed 

 it and perhaps was stung. He kept on scratching his 

 beak, first on one side, then on the other, and seemed 

 uneasy, but was all right again in half an hour, though he 

 did not seem keen after another offered to him ; nor would 

 he take any notice of a drone fly. Two or three days 

 later, however, he took a disabled humble-bee to the 

 water, mumbled it there for a while, and then ate it. 

 My experience with moorhen chicks is of a similar 

 character. On giving a humble-bee to two of them one 

 seemed shy of it ; the other ate it eagerly. Later, when 

 they were a fortnight old, I threw them two bees, which 

 were seized at once and without hesitation, and shaken 

 violently. One of the birds was probably stung, for he 

 shook his head, scratched the base of his bill, and went 

 again and again to the water and drank. He was all 

 right in about three-quarters of an hour, but for about 

 that time scolded a good deal. The other ate his bee 

 without any ill effects. A day or two after they were 

 given a humble-bee, from which the sting had been removed, 

 but the bird that had been stung would not go near the 

 insect ; the other seized and ate it. The next day two 

 drone flies were given to them. The stung bird would not 

 go near them ; the other ate both. He subsequently ate one 

 of the flies (Volucella), which mimics the wasp ; there was 

 no sign of instinctive avoidance. I experimented one day, 

 after testing that his avoidance of cinnabar larvae still 

 held good, by giving him a wasp from which the sting had 

 removed, being desirous to see whether the black and 

 yellow of the wasp suggested the nastiness associated with 

 the black and yellow of the cinnabar. But it was not so ; 

 the wasp was snapped up and eaten. 



I have not, in any one instance, found any instinctive 

 avoidance of wasps. The sting was usually removed before 



