BIKD-ALTKUISM 79 



she had her revenge at 3 a.m. next day, and turned the 

 farmer out of his bed with her mournful lamentations. 

 Well, sir, I want to ask your readers : (1) Did the duck 

 (obviously angry) believe that we were playing cricket 

 with her eggs? (2) What is the size-limit of the brood- 

 ing instinct? Would she have tackled a football? 



C. CAREY TAYLOR. 



A BIRD'S ALTRUISM 



I know that you are interested in birds and their ways, 

 and I think you will like to hear of an instance of sagacity 

 and sympathy on the part of a rook in my garden. We feed 

 the birds and always have water for them, and lately a 

 poor maimed rook has been coming with the others. He 

 has lost one leg altogether, and the other hangs limp and 

 useless without any foot. It seemed so pitiful to see him 

 trying to get along on the ground with the help of his 

 wings that I thought it would be the kindest thing to have 

 him destroyed, but the following incident happened which 

 made me feel that the sentence must be suspended. The 

 poor thing was on the lawn with three others. The three 

 all drank, and two of them flew away. The one that 

 remained stood before the cripple and bowed several times 

 till his head nearly touched the ground, then he walked 

 all round him as if considering what to do, then with a 

 sudden determination he carefully put his wing under 

 one of the cripple's wings and dragged and supported him 

 to the water. 



The basin is rather high, so when they reached it he 

 gave an extra tug to lift him up, and after filling his own 

 beak and dropping water into his friend's mouth, as if 

 to show where the water was, the invalid was able to 

 reach it for himself. This happened two days ago, and 

 a member of the family who observed the birds a great 

 deal think that the maimed bird is a hen and that the 



