BIRDS IN A VILLAGE 95 



of being destroyed itself. How often the bird stays 

 too long on the nest is seen in the corncrake, a 

 species continually decreasing in this country owing 

 to the destruction caused by the mowing machine. 

 The parent birds that escape may breed again in a 

 safer place, but in many cases the bird clings too 

 long to its nest and is decapitated or fatally injured 

 by the cutters. Larks, too, often perish in the same 

 way. 



To go back to the ailing or wounded bird simu- 

 lating action. This is perhaps most perfect in the 

 gallinaceous birds, all ground-breeders whose nests 

 are most diligently hunted for by all egg-eating 

 creatures, beast or bird, and whose tender chicks 

 are a favourite food of all rapacious animals. In the 

 fowl, pheasants, partridges, quail, and grouse, the 

 instinct is singularly powerful, the bird making such 

 violent efforts to escape, with such an outcry, such 

 beating of its wings and struggles on the ground, 

 that no rapacious beast, however often he may have 

 been deceived before, can fail to be carried away 

 with the prospect of an immediate capture. The 

 instinct and action has appeared to me more highly 

 developed in these birds because in the first place 

 the demonstrations are more violent than in other 

 families, consequently more effective ; and secondly 

 because, the danger once over, the bird's recovery 

 to its normal quiet watchful state is quicker. By 



