256 WILD LIFE ON A NORFOLK ESTUARY 



kinds, will pursue each other and fight in mid-air over a 

 coveted morsel that the original finder failed to swallow on 

 the instant of his luck. It is usual for starlings to harass a 

 kestrel flying across the marshes, and nothing uncommon 

 for a parcel of angry finches to mob a cuckoo. Sparrows 

 will fight and scuffle at certain times like fighting-cocks, and 

 pull feathers off each other's heads. On one occasion I 

 witnessed a remarkable scrimmage on the Bure marshes 

 between some starlings and a " bunch " of common sand- 

 pipers. There was much squealing and a great show of 

 anger ; but I did not see the finish of it, for the wading 

 birds beat a retreat, their assailants pursuing them. What 

 two utterly distinct races of birds like these could find to 

 quarrel over would be hard to say. A heron and a gull 

 engaged in fierce combat one day on Breydon ; the heron 

 seemed glad to beat a retreat, while the gull received a nasty 

 wound in its breast from the heron's vicious bill-thrusts. 



It may be that these feelings and actions of opposite 

 characters are referable to accidents and emergencies, arising 

 from jealousy and rivalry, probably due to aggression and 

 resentment ; while sometimes fears for the safety of their 

 young make birds quarrelsome. One August morning, in 

 1895, 1 saw a " rare to-do" between a swarm of swallows and 

 a kestrel, the latter having been caught hanging around one 

 of the mills, as likely as not in search of field-mice on the 

 marsh, although it is just probable that some weakling 

 swallow had attracted its attention. The redbreast is quarrel- 

 some enough in winter, and particularly objects to intrusions 

 on his territories, driving away with vigorous assault any 

 newcomer where food is scattered for him. I once placed 

 four in a cage, but would not repeat the experiment. On 

 the following morning one lay dead on the floor of the cage ; 

 another lay there next day, and yet another on the following 

 morning. The victor seemed quite proud of his conquests, 

 and I let him go. 



The pursuit and robbing of gulls by skuas can hardly 

 come under the heading of discord, for it is a recognised 

 part of their natural economy ; too lazy or too incompe- 

 tent to engage in honest fishing, the skuas impose a kind of 

 avian income-tax with a persistency and vigour that suggest 

 a power to fish for themselves, if they choose to do so. 



