106 BIRD BEHAVIOUR 



have seen a Great Crested Grebe at the Zoo eat 

 about half-a-dozen feathers in a quarter of an 

 hour, as they came out when it was pluming itself ; 

 but I never saw Dabchicks either eat their own 

 feathers or give any to their young. 



A very rare and interesting habit is that of 

 young birds feeding each other ; I only know of 

 two cases in which it is regularly done those of 

 the common Moorhen and apparently the Coot. 

 In both cases it is the birds of the first brood, by 

 this time nearly full-feathered but still unable to 

 fly, which thus help their parents with the small 

 downy chicks of the second batch ; it is a common 

 sight in the case of the Moorhens in the London 

 parks, and it was in St. James's Park that I saw a 

 young Coot feeding its junior. This case was a 

 particularly curious one, because I saw the feeding 

 young bird actually cry for food to the parent, and 

 on one occasion eat what it thus got itself, and 

 another hand it over to the small chick. 



When rearing a brood of young Indian Rollers 

 (Coracias indica) I noticed that, although so ravenous 

 that when they saw me coming with the raw meat 

 on which I chiefly fed them they would not only 

 yell lustily but start fighting vigorously, yet a bird 

 which had had enough would feed another one with 

 the next piece given it ; this, however, was, I 

 expect, an abnormal piece of benevolence, chiefly 

 prompted by the bird's dislike to give up what it 

 had once seized, while it could not itself swallow 

 it. Similarly, the instinct of birds which disgorge 



