The Mentality of Wild Birds and Beasties 



me, I am bound to confess, that in contests between 

 members of the same species of birds for nests under 

 construction, or the materials thereof, the principle of 

 right has generally prevailed. I have witnessed a dis- 

 honest rook stealing sticks from an absent neighbour's 

 nest receive a severe castigation upon being caught in 

 the act by the owner. On St. Kilda, the Bass Rock 

 and Ailsa Craig, I have seen similar punishment meted 

 out to gannets caught stealing seaweed or turf. One is 

 always glad to see the just triumphant, but, of course, 

 in both Fabre's cases, and my own, we must not forget 

 the possibility that the thieves may have been old in- 

 dividuals, stronger in knowledge than physical power, 

 and that fact might account for the victory of the 

 righteous. 



Alas ! when it comes to a contest between members 

 of different species the laws of kultur invariably prevail, 

 and might or mentality triumph over right. 



As an example of this, I have watched a pair of 

 green woodpeckers laboriously chisel a nesting-hole in 

 the trunk of a tree, and when unremitting toil has been 

 rewarded by satisfactory breeding-quarters for the 

 season, along has come a couple of house-hunting 

 starlings and turned them out bag and baggage and 

 taken possession. A few years ago a pair of starlings 

 made their home in a nesting-box in my garden, but 

 were turned out by wrynecks, and these birds in their 

 turn were evicted by house sparrows. It is a somewhat 

 far cry between the last-named species and the first in 

 point of size and strength, but I would back the men- 



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