96 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE 



way of experiment I have at various times thrown 

 myself on pheasants, partridges, and grouse, when 

 I have found them with a family of recently hatched 

 chicks ; then on giving up the chase and turning 

 away from the bird its instantaneous recovery has 

 seemed like a miracle* It was like a miracle because 

 the creature did actually suffer from all those violent 

 debilitating emotions expressed in its disordered 

 cries and action, and it is the miracle of Nature's 

 marvellous health* If we, for example, were thrown 

 into these violent extremes of passion we should 

 not escape the after effects. Our whole system would 

 suffer, a doctor would perhaps have to be called in 

 and would discourse wisely on metabolism and the 

 development of toxins in the muscles and give us 

 a bottle of medicine* 



I will conclude this digression and dissertation 

 on a bird's instinct by relating the action of a hen 

 pheasant I once witnessed, partly because it is the 

 most striking one I have met with of that instan- 

 taneous recovery of a bird from an extremity of 

 distress and terror, and partly for another reason 

 which will appear at the end* 



The hen pheasant was a solitary bird, having 

 strayed away from the pheasant copses near the 

 Itchen and found a nesting-place a mile away, on 

 the other side of the valley, among the tall grasses 

 and sedges on its border* I was the bird's only 



