164 BIRD HAUNTS AND NATURE MEMORIES 



the stoat or fox is at work, the fierce sparrowhawk or 

 relentless carrion crow has secured a victim. And at 

 night the cries of fear, the shrieks of pain are frequent 

 and startling, for then the nocturnal carnivores and the 

 owls are hunting. The stoat and weasel attack the 

 rat, itself a ferocious marauder; the fox stalks and captures 

 the rabbit, or rudely disturbs the slumbers of the roosting 

 bird; the otter slays the flapper and the strong- jawed pike, 

 which is itself responsible for the murder of many a downy 

 infant coot and grebe. The noisy jay could tell why 

 some of the birds are childless ; its blue eye discovered the 

 nest. The gentle dunnock, the trustful robin, the ever- 

 busy little wren killed the spider when it was thrusting 

 its poison fangs into the nerve ganglia of the predaceous 

 fly, whose beak was plunged into a smaller member of its 

 order when it blundered into the fatal snare. The dragon- 

 fly and other hovering insects are keenly seeking possible 

 victims; the wasp bears off the dismembered but still 

 moving prey to the ever-hungry grubs. The solitary 

 wasp laboriously drags the paralysed spider or caterpillar 

 to be entombed alive for the edification of its still unborn 

 children, children which it will never see; sealed in the 

 tunnel the captive, inert but alive, will be consumed by 

 a future wasp. The young thrush sees the bumble-bee 

 and disables it with a peck, then, scared by the angry 

 buzz, leaves it to perish; the ants hasten the end. The 

 lumbering dor-beetle, wandering across the ride, carries 

 with it a host of parasitical mites; if these are blood- 

 suckers its days are numbered. 



What is the real condition, what the actual feelings of 

 these inhabitants of a joyful and beautiful world which is 

 scarred and stained with the lust of blood ? We cannot 

 tell, but we may hazard a guess. We are predatory, 

 flesh- eating animals ourselves; we, too, live in an atmo- 

 sphere of accident, outrage, and sudden death. We know 



