DO STARLINGS PAIR FOR LIFE «■ 335 



and then away, leaving her standing on the spot, 

 shaking her head in anger and disgust at their escape. 

 A rhinoceros charging a ball of thistledown or a 

 soap-bubble, and causing it to float away with the 

 wind it created, would not have been a more ludicrous 

 spectacle. 



II 



DO STARLINGS PAIR FOR LIFE i 



From my boyhood, when I first began to observe 

 birds, I started with the imbibed notion that those 

 which paired for life were the rare exceptions — 

 the dove that rhymed with love, the eagle, and 

 perhaps half a dozen more./ Who, for instance, 

 would imagine that the sexes could be faithful in 

 parasitical species like the cuckoo of Europe and the 

 cow-birds of America i Yet even as a boy I made 

 the discovery that an Argentine cow-bird that lays 

 its eggs in the nests of other species, does actually 

 pair for life ; and so effectually mated is it, that on 

 no day and no season of the year will you see a male 

 without his female : if he flies she flies with him and 

 feeds and drinks with him, and when he perches 

 she perches at his side, and he never utters a sound 



