The Mentality of Wild Birds and Beasties 



crowd of his kino 1 , the supposed moral delinquent was 

 tried, condemned, and as a punishment for her sins 

 literally torn to pieces. If this and similar accounts 

 relating to birds of this and other species were true 

 what would be the fate of every little foster-mother that 

 had the misfortune to hatch out a young cuckoo ? 

 Also, how long would the cuckoo last as a species in the 

 world ? 



In Mrs. Lee's " Anecdotes of Birds " there is a very 

 circumstantial account of how, a waterhen, or moorhen, 

 that had built her nest on the edge of a pond added 

 materials to the structure in order to prevent the eggs 

 from being submerged by a sudden rise in the height of 

 the water. There is nothing whatever inherently im- 

 probable in this anecdote saving the unaccountably 

 sudden metamorphosis of the bird, which during the 

 brief account of its commendably sensible action 

 changes from a waterhen into a coot. 



Whilst studying ornithological subjects on Texel 

 Island some years ago I had the nest of a redshank 

 shown to me. It was built upon flat and comparatively 

 bare ground, and not far away a lapwing sat upon four 

 eggs in a meagre nest made on a mudflat which had re- 

 cently been reclaimed from the bottom of the Zuider 

 Zee. The night after I had been shown the former nest 

 and discovered the latter a deluge of rain fell, and the 

 following morning I trudged a long way over the sodden 

 countryside to discover the fate that had overtaken the 

 two sitting birds. To my surprise I found the faithful 

 redshank still covering her eggs, although they were half 



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