64 "Behold the Birds of the Air" 



less remarkable than their seasons. From certain 

 definite points of the coast do they start their long flight 

 across the sea, and not from others; and to the same 

 do they return. An observer, for example, on the Nor- 

 folk coast may catch scarce a glimpse of the spring 

 immigrants, while at the same time sailors and light-ship 

 men, a few miles off, report dense converging streams 

 pouring towards the estuaries of the Trent and the 

 Humber. 



Migration is the broadest and most striking feature of 

 bird-life, but it is one feature only out of many which 

 will reveal themselves to eyes that care to look. The 

 manners and customs, the associations and antipathies, 

 of various species are each a subject of study and of 

 marvel ; 



The modes of life 



Native to each, and what, among themselves 

 Their feuds, affections, and confederacies. 1 



Whence for example, to take but a few obvious ex- 

 amples, do the Crow tribe get their proclivity for running 

 away with shining objects ? Do they indulge the practice 

 in the wild state? or is it a taste developed only by 

 domestication ? The Oxeye-tit too, when at large, is not 

 known to batter out other birds' brains and devour them, 

 but this he will certainly do if confined in an aviary. 

 Why do small birds mob the Cuckoo? Is it because 

 they recognize in him a disturber of their homes ? And 

 if they so recognize the parent bird, how are they so 

 inconceivably obtuse as not to detect the nature of his 

 enormous brute of a son, hatched in their own nests, 

 which they will sometimes go on feeding even when he 

 has grown so far beyond themselves that they must 

 perch on his back to reach his mouth ? Why do Tit- 

 larks assault Missel Thrushes? and why do the latter, 

 large and not sweet-tempered birds, submit to be so 



Siairav 



, Kal Trpbs a\\-f)\ovs rives 

 re Kal artpyndpa Kal ^vvftipiai (/Esch. Prom. 498). 



