THE CHICKEN THIEF 59 



food from that time on consisted of raw meat, 

 mostly beef scraps. They did not seem to get 

 on well, even with each other, and apparently 

 their appetites were not satisfied without a 

 mixture of feathers with their meat. At any 

 rate, two of the birds finally killed and ate the 

 third one. In all his experience with birds the 

 Naturalist had never seen a family where there 

 was such an entire lack of interest in the young 

 on the part of the parent birds. Some birds 

 that are extremely shy are very solicitous con- 

 cerning their young, but like some human 

 criminals, self-preservation seemed to be the 

 only thing that greatly concerned the cooper 

 hawks. 



