i88 BIRD WATCHING 



having it. The other one seems all the while to admire 

 it too, and often makes as though to take it from him 

 — prettily and softly — but he refuses it to her, some- 

 thing as a dog prettily refuses to give up a stick to 

 his master. At last, however, he lets her take it — 

 which, it is apparent, he has meant to do all the time 

 — and when she has it she behaves in much the same 

 manner with it, whilst he would seem to beg it back of 

 her, and thus they go on together for such a time that 

 at last I weary of watching them. There is a wonderful 

 making much of the fish between the two birds, yet it 

 is not eaten by either of them, and there is no chick, 

 here, in the case. It is quite apparent that the fish 

 is only something for coquetry and affection to gather 

 about — it is a focus, ^ point cTappui, a peg to hang love 

 upon. Yet the birds — and this is what I constantly 

 notice — seem only to have a kind of half consciousness 

 of what they mean." This particular fish, I may say, 

 was minus the head, which had the appearance of 

 having been neatly and cleanly cut off. 



Yet there are harsher notes amidst all this tender- 

 ness, and the state of a bird's appetite will sometimes 

 make a vast difference in its conduct under the same 

 or similar circumstances. " A bird," for instance, " that 

 has just come with a fish in its bill for the young one, 

 is violently attacked — and this several times in succes- 

 sion — by the other parent, who is in actual charge of 

 the chick. This one — we will suppose it to be the 

 father, though, I half think, unjustly — makes the 

 greediest dart at the fish, trying to seize it out of his 

 wife's bill, and also pecks her very violently. Once 

 he seizes her by the neck and holds her thus for some 

 seconds, yet all the while in the couched attitude and 



