WILD LIFE ON THE WING 
the glen, and in stormy weather, flights of the 
redwing kind, but the latter seldom came to 
earth. They perched twittering in some tree- 
top and Shacaim would pause in his pupa- 
hunting to watch them. Sometimes he tried 
to join them, but generally, long before he 
came up with them, with a rush of wings and 
flash of red under-coverts, they returned to the 
open country whither he could not follow them. 
I do not know whether his loneliness grieved 
him as human beings understand grief, but I 
think that he must have felt dimly that some- 
thing was lacking to him ; for Robinson Crusoe 
on his island was not more solitary than he, 
bound to this corner of the woods, and cut off 
from all communion with his kind. The brain 
of a bird (and in less measure that of a beast) 
is a tilting-ground for conflicting instincts. 
These instincts also battle in the human brain, 
but here the referee the consciousness steps 
in to order their tournament. In the woods 
the strongest instinct wins ; and although after 
such a glimpse the redwing became restless for 
a while, yet very soon the more insistent need 
for food or self-preservation drove out theweaker 
desire for fellowship. 
