108 BRITISH BIRDS. [vol. vii. 



the usual thing for the first-bom to kill one if not both of his younger 

 brothers. I first became aware of this habit ten years ago, while 

 examining a brood of three young Buzzards. One of them, fierce 

 as an Eaglet, struck at my finger, and st a shrew which I held to him,, 

 then caught one of his fellow-nestlings by the nape of the neck, and 

 pecked and worried him with all his might. Again, referring to two 

 newly-hatched young, I have a note : " The stronger one bullied 

 the other one unmercifully, and was evidently in process of doing 

 it to death." Mr. Grubb writes of a nest which " had three young 

 when I first saw it, but one was rapidly bullying the others to death. 

 A week later this one — ^the biggest of the three — had finished his 

 brothers and grown proportionately." 



A writer in the Zoologist notes a case in which the 

 younger of two Indian Pariah Kites perished. Of the 

 two eggs, the first hatched on February 4th, the second 

 on February 7th : — 



On the 21st February I found the younger fiedgling dead in the 

 nest. It was quite flattened out, a circumstance indicating that the 

 mother must either have trampled it to death by accident, or sat 

 upon it too heavily. The carcase was intact, but on the fourth day 

 after the occurrence there was nothing left but a few fragments 

 scattered about ; the mother, apparently knowing that the bird was 

 dead, had made a meal of it. 



It may here be mentioned that John WoUey was 

 told of young Montagu's Harriers pecking one of 

 their fellows to death when it had become smeared 

 with blood. 



It seems probable to me that in all these species of 

 the Falconidse, the smaller young may meet their end 

 by any of the foregoing means : the other young may 

 starve or bully them to death, or may attack them when 

 they have inadvertently become smeared with blood 

 whilst devouring their food ; again, the parent-birds 

 may crush the less vigorous to death. But though the 

 means of destruction are varied the root cause is the 

 same : it is the handicap of being hatched out at a later 

 date than the nestlings from the eggs laid first. 



In this connexion a factor which is of undoubted 

 importance, is the greater interval which I have frequently 

 noticed between the laying of the last eggs, compared 

 with that elapsing between those deposited earlier. 

 Very commonly in the case of a bird which has laid 

 its eggs with a regular interval between them, the 



