A WOODLAND TRAGEDY 83 



The swift flies very high, and lives on summer 

 insects, which come out in July and August only ; 

 so he arrives here late, and goes away again some- 

 times as early as the date of grouse-shooting. The 

 house-martin, on the other hand, subsists on low- 

 flying midges which surround houses ; he therefore 

 comes first of all his group, and goes away latest. 

 The night-jar flits over fern-clad or heather-clad 

 moors, and feeds almost entirely on certain night- 

 flying beetles and moths ; hence he arrives when 

 they hatch out from the cocoon, and flaps south- 

 ward again on his big, overlapping wings as soon 

 as they have disappeared or been mostly eaten. 

 It is all a question of commissariat. Our early 

 English kings had manors of their own in many 

 parts of the country, in all of which supplies were 

 laid up throughout the year for the royal table ; 

 in due time, the king arrived with all his court, 

 stopped a month or six weeks, ate up all that 

 was provided for him, and then rode on with his 

 hungry horde to the next royal manor. It is just 

 the same with the birds ; they come and go as 

 supplies are assured them. The shrike stops in 

 England while bees and beetles last ; when pro- 

 vender fails, he is off on his own strong wings to 

 Rhodesia. 



No. 5 introduces us to another strange scene in 

 the eternal epic of prey and slaughter. It shows 

 us how beetle proposes, but shrike disposes. Here, 

 parental feeling wars against parental feeling. A 

 busy group of burying-beetles have lighted upon 

 a dead field-mouse itself hawked at, perhaps, 



