208 GLIMPSES OF INDIAN BIRDS 



deliberately pretending to be wounded with the object 

 of diverting the attention of an intruder from their 

 eggs or young. I hold this view to be utterly and 

 entirely wrong. Consider the long chain of reasoning 

 that a bird has to make before behaving as swallow- 

 plovers are supposed to do. In the first place the 

 birds must know or believe that the intruder has 

 come with the object of taking their eggs or young 

 ones. They must know or believe that the said in- 

 truder would like to capture them in preference 

 to their eggs or young. They must further have 

 discovered that a bird with a leg or a wing broken is 

 easier to capture than one that is sound in limb. 

 They must also know how a bird with a broken wing 

 or leg behaves when endeavouring to escape from a 

 foe. Knowing and believing all these things, the 

 swallow-plover must reason thus within itself : " If 

 I pretend that I am injured the intruder will try to 

 catch me and thus be drawn away from my eggs or 

 young. I will, therefore, proceed to act the wounded 

 bird to the best of my ability." 



I do not for a moment believe that the average 

 swallow-plover has half this knowledge and power 

 of reasoning. Its behaviour can be accounted for 

 in a far more probable manner. We all know that 

 instinct teaches birds to fly away from all birds or 

 beasts of prey or large strange moving objects ; 

 but instinct teaches them to guard their eggs. Now, 

 when a human being approaches the eggs of a pra- 

 tincole, these two instincts come into violent oppo- 

 sition, and the bird's mental equilibrium is much dis- 



