CREATURES OF THE WILDERNESS in 



from a most aggressive rook, which attacked 

 the little animal vigorously. Realising that 

 escape was out of the question, the squirrel kept 

 up the fight for an hour, when an unlooked-for 

 interruption came in the arrival of two doves, 

 which immediately drove the rook off and sent 

 it in headlong flight. It is not easy to under- 

 stand why the doves took the squirrel's part, 

 unless, of course, they had a nest in that tree, 

 though even so the squirrel would have been as 

 likely a poacher as the rook. It may, of 

 course, have been dictated by a chivalrous im- 

 pulse to protect the weaker side, or it may, 

 again, have been just love of a fight for 

 fighting's sake, though that is not a taste we 

 usually associate with doves. 



Reference was made above to the machan^ 

 and the success of shooting from these plat- 

 forms, such as it is, is due to another error of 

 instinct. The tiger, though one of the most 

 careful and suspicious of wild beasts, rarely 

 looks up to see if there is danger overhead. 

 The majority of wild beasts have the same 

 peculiarity, and as, in the natural state, they 

 have nothing to apprehend in that quarter, they 

 never seem to learn to be on the look out for it, 

 though the leopard, itself a climber, generally 

 scans the trees for any sign of an enemy. 

 From repeated reference to leopards climbing 

 trees, the impression might be given that tigers 



