A WOODLAND TRAGEDY 85 



these burying-beetles are carrion-feeders, whose 

 larvae thrive on dead and decaying animals ; and 

 they desire to bury the corpse in order to keep 

 it intact for their own brood, without interference 

 on the part of other and more powerful carrion- 

 eaters. When successful, they cover the mouse 

 entirely with mould, and thus leave their young 

 supplied with a liberal diet. 



But hidden among the greenery of a tree over- 

 head, a cynical butcher-bird is calmly watching 

 those insect sextons from the corner of his eye. 

 As soon as enough of them have collected on 

 the spot, he will swoop down upon their bodies 

 unseen from above, and will carry them off to 

 spike them on his own pet thorns for the benefit of 

 his struggling young family. Thus does parental 

 affection war unconsciously against parental affec- 

 tion. Each kind fights only for its own hand, 

 and regards only the young of its own species. 

 For as Tennyson says well in " Maud " : 



" Nature is one with rapine, a harm no preacher can heal ; 

 The Mayfly is torn by the swallow, the sparrow speared 



by the shrike, 

 And the whole little wood where I sit is a world of 



plunder and prey." 



No. 6 shows us one member of the butcher- 

 bird's young family, just hatched and fledged, in 

 his streaky grey plumage, and beginning to go 

 out upon the world for himself. He is trying 

 to catch an insect on a thorn above him. It 

 also suggests to us the appropriate moral that if 



