312 BIRD BEHAVIOUR 



Among quaint bird customs, a very widespread 

 and reprehensible one is that of piracy, the Frigate- 

 birds and Skua Gulls, which live largely on what 

 they frighten out of other birds, being the acknow- 

 ledged professional exponents thereof, while many 

 birds, both on land and sea, attempt it in an amateur 

 way. Eagles are notorious highwaymen as well as 

 pirates, for though the malpractices of the American 

 " Bird of Freedom " on the Osprey are most 

 notorious, the inland Eagles are every whit as bad 

 where Hawks are concerned, as is well known to 

 Eastern falconers ; Prince Mirza Mohammed, in 

 his admirable treatise on Hawking, translated by 

 Colonel Phillott, advises falconers to go out for 

 their sport early in the day, because Eagles do not 

 begin to soar and look out for plunder till the sun 

 is high. Gulls in different parts of the world rob 

 Lapwings and Oyster-catchers, and surface-feeding 

 Ducks like Wigeon will sponge both on diving 

 Ducks and on wild Swans, their own powers of 

 exploiting the bottom being limited as a rule to 

 depths of a few inches. 



Kingfishers may both rob and be robbed ; I 

 have seen a White-breasted Kingfisher (Halcyon 

 smyrnensis) in India a very poor fisherman rob 

 a Dabchick once, and evidently meditate the act 

 oftener, and Mr. D. Dewar has seen another Indian 

 Kingfisher, the Pied, Ceryle varia, badly badgered 

 by a River-Tern (Sterna seena), which wanted a 

 frog it had caught. 



The Sparrow, as one might expect from his 



