290 A HISTORY OF BIRDS 



indeed have already been given in these pages. A sudden fall 

 of temperature, bush-fires, and other, climatic variations cause 

 great havoc among nestlings : but these tend to eliminate all 

 but the strongest, all but the most receptive, all, in short, but 

 the fittest. 



From the melancholy aspect of death it is fitting that we 

 should pass to the brighter side of the picture, revealing birds 

 at play, by way of bringing this chapter to a close. 



Unfortunately, but few facts have been collected on this 

 theme. Mr. H. E. Howard, in his masterly study of the 

 Warblers, has brought to light some interesting facts on this 

 head. Thus young Sedge-warblers, just after having left the 

 nest, he tells us, are very playful, " their games sometimes taking 

 the form of a tilting match. Three take part, two sit on con- 

 venient twigs facing one another, and the third, from his 

 central position, might almost be called an umpire. Numbers 

 one and two then lower their heads, each in anticipation of the 

 other moving ; one of them, call him number one, then springs 

 into the air, and darts at number two ; number two dodges and 

 occupies the position vacated by number one; each of them 

 then face round ready to continue the fray, the change of 

 positions becoming quite rapid." 



Dr. C. W. Andrews has similarly recorded the play of young 

 Frigate-birds observed by him on Christmas Island. " Groups 

 of them," he says, " could often be seen near the coast stooping 

 to the water, one after the other, to pick up leaves and other 

 floating objects, and then dropping them, apparently practising 

 the method by which their parents obtain their food, which 

 consists of surface-fish and cephalopods." 



As in the cases of play in other groups of animals, young 

 birds perform in pantomime those evolutions which are to be 

 matters of life and death in after-life, and here, doubtless, the 

 work of selection begins. The more clumsy will later, in all 

 probability, prove the more indifferent performers, and so suffer 

 in competition with their more agile neighbours. 



So far the number of observations on this subject with 

 regard to birds is pitifully meagre, so much so, that in these 

 two instances we have exhausted the list of cases known to 

 us! 



