28 FEATHERED POLICE 



pudding, long-pod, caper-longtail, mumruffin, or huck- 

 muck, for rural fancy has been fertile in devising 

 names for this tiny creature. It goes about its quest 

 for food in an amateurish, unbusinesslike way, very 

 unlike the eager, professional scrutiny of the pretty 

 blue tits, of which there is a pair examining the sprays 

 of yonder larch. Very different, too, from the little 

 tree-creeper, a dingy and humble relative of the gaily 

 pranked woodpeckers, which is quartering every inch 

 of that oak-stem with short, quick, jerky pace. Its 

 total length from head to tail is about the same as the 

 bottle-tit (we have got among the midgets to-day) ; but 

 in this instance the object of prolonged tail-feathers 

 is not difficult to divine, for they are stiffened and 

 divergent, so as to form a useful prop to the proprietor 

 in his work on vertical surfaces. 



XII 



Now this little drama, enacted on this January after- 

 noon by these diminutive performers, is part of the 

 Feathered great scheme known as the balance of Nature, 

 police Here, within a space of fifty square yards of 

 a wind-swept wood, are three distinct species of birds, 

 all in pursuit of the same quarry, namely, insect life in 

 various stages. One might think that neither larva, 

 nor chrysalis, nor creeping creature could escape the 

 diligent search of so many pairs of bright, beady eyes. 

 But insect life is not only gifted with enormous repro- 

 ductive powers ; it is in itself so admirably contrived 

 for existence, that, were special provision not at hand 



