68 WILD NATURE'S WAYS. 



in close proximity to each other. One day, both 

 birds were frightened away from their incubating 

 operations, and the latter, returning home first, 

 took the opportunity to devour her neighbour's 

 hopes and expectations. There was nothing very 

 wonderful or un-gull-like in this, but the eider 

 duck's subsequent retaliatory behaviour was cer- 

 tainly novel. She turned the tables upon her 

 enemy by taking complete possession of her nest 

 and eggs, and undertaking the work of nidification 

 for her. 



I am sometimes told by people whose acquaint- 

 ance with what I would call the operative side 

 of natural history is somewhat limited, I fear, 

 that all the interesting facts connected with 

 British ornithology have long ago been discovered 

 and chronicled in books. Experience has per- 

 suaded me that Nature, although alluringly rich, 

 does not yield up her secrets in such an easy, 

 wholesale way as to render this possible. She 

 has her unguarded moments, of course, but 

 generally insists that the discoverer of her ways 

 shall work hard for the little he learns, and I 

 would not like to confess how many hours of 

 cramped misery it has cost me to find out a few 

 things that would perhaps be regarded as mere 

 trivialities by many people : for example, to 

 establish the fact that nearly all wild birds that 

 feed their young on insects like to deliver the 



