BIKD LIFE IN COLONSAY 45 



doubt whether much of the sentiment expressed by 

 early Victorian poets and moralists on the cruelty of 

 robbing birds' nests is not thrown away. Courthope, 

 in his Paradise of Birds, gives in his charming verse 

 a description of the manner of taking eider-down, 

 derived from Hartwig's Polar World : 



" For where the brown duck stripped her breast 

 For her dear eggs and windy nest, 

 Three times her bitter spoil was won 

 For woman ; and when all was done, 

 She called her snow-white piteous drake, 

 Who plucked his bosom for our sake." 



But I have my doubts whether birds whose nests 

 have been robbed, for down or eggs, think any more 

 of it in half an hour's time than the domestic hen does 

 of the new-laid egg which steams upon the breakfast- 

 table. Bird memories are short, and the bereaved 

 matron whose nest has been taken soon sets calmly 

 to work to make another, happily oblivious of her 

 wasted labours. Gallantly as bird and beast defend 

 their young by force and stratagem as long as pro- 

 tection is needed, family affection does not survive 

 the passing of the period of immaturity, or interfere 

 with the struggle for life or the survival of the fittest. 

 As the Communists would have it here, the State 

 soon claims and adopts all children alike, and no 

 gratitude for the toils of incubation prevents the 

 young drake from fighting his father when he thinks 

 he is strong enough to supplant him. Where man 

 pays for the tribute he exacts by protection and en- 

 couragement, I think the bird or beast, if it appreciated 

 and was able to weigh the circumstances, would not 

 grudge the price. 



