310 BIRD BEHAVIOUR 



do not really need to fix it up in order to tear it. 

 I once saw a Drongo-Shrike, a Bhimraj or Great 

 Racket-tailed Drongo (Dissemurus faradiseus}, grip 

 and scalp a gecko-lizard I gave him -alive, thinking 

 he would kill it more quickly and mercifully than 

 I could, whistling meanwhile with horrid pleasure. 

 Needless to say, I did not give him any more live 

 lizards. 



Similar cat-like cruelty has been observed by 

 Darwin in the case of a Cormorant, which amused 

 itself by letting go a captured fish and catching it 

 again, and by Buller in the case of a New Zealand 

 Hawk (Hieracidea) which carried up two mice^ 

 one in each foot, and dropped them to catch them 

 again, till he lost one, and decided to end the 

 misery of the other by eating it. Cruel as it is, 

 this habit is particularly interesting, as there were 

 no mice in New Zealand to play with before we 

 came, though no doubt the young of the Maori 

 rat and of the native Quail (Coturnix novee-zea- 

 landite) had to put up with similar maltreatment 

 before the white man and the mice appeared. 



The Carrion-Hawks of South America, so Crow- 

 like in their ways, develop the storage habit in 

 captivity at any rate, for I have seen both the 

 Caracara and Forster's Milvago (Ibycter australis), 

 the " Jack- Rook " of the Falklands, store away food 

 at the Zoo. Owls are very great at keeping larders, 

 and often accumulate quite a quantity of prey in 

 their nesting-places, which, unlike most birds, they 

 use as true homes, not merely as nurseries. Among 



