40 THE WOMBAT. 
fact, so long as you stay to watch it—as first one gull and then 
another bears down upon first one and then another peewit, which 
peewit has invariably, whenever your eyes are quick enough to 
detect it, either just found or just eaten something, this theory has 
to be abandoned and it soon becomes plain to sense and reason 
that the gulls are systematically and of set purpose robbing the 
peewits. Sometimes one may see one of them make a mistake, 
that is it will set out towards a peewit—evidently under the 
impression that the latter has found something—but all at once 
stop, as haying discovered its error, and continue to watch and wait. 
Sometimes, too, the attack or approach is so swift and silent that 
the peewit, taken by surprise, flies hurriedly up, leaving its harvest: 
on the ground, for the gull at once to dispose of. As a rule, 
however, the peewit is chased,and as a rule also—I should say at 
least four out of every half a dozen times—it parts with its booty 
to the aggressor. In the caxes where it does not, it either, by its 
obstinancy, tires the guil out, or—as sometimes happens—it owes 
its impunity to the rival efforts of two or more pursuers. As a rule 
the gulls stand at fairly wide intervals over the land, but occasionally, 
two will be near together, and whichever of these first rises the 
other is sure to do so too and to pursue either the peewit or its 
fellow toiler. Great indignation is exhibited, in these circumstances, 
by the two marauders each one of whom considers the other to be 
an intruder upon its own rights. ‘They assail one another in the 
air, their course becomes deflected, and the peewit escapes—an 
interesting and pretty illustration of the old adage that ‘‘ when 
thieves fall out honest men come by their own.’ 
Except in these circumstances one gull is not, as a tule, 
interfered with by another in the pursuit of its game and, as 
respect for each other’s rights is a quality which neither these nor-— 
as far as I have observed—any other social birds posesss, at least 
in the matter of eating, this forbearance, I think, must be due 
entirely to the teachings of experience—for a peewit pursued by 
more than one gull seldom yields to either. 
Does the peewit, when thus forced to relinquish what it has 
honestly acquired (for we will consider the worm or grub to be 
either @ consenting party or grossly in the wrong) merely drop it 
out of its beak, or is it made actually to disgorge it, as are gulls 
themselves in similar circumstances by the skuas? ‘To make this 
out through the glasses is difficult, if not impossible, but it seems 
likeiy that in the majority of instances the latter is the case, 
strange as this may appear—tor the peewit has not, like the gulls, 
the natural habit of disgorging its food. J can, however, see no 
reason why it should not, as a rule, swallow what it finds before 
the gull is upon it, and even if it were unable it should, one would 
think, be no such difficult matter to gulp it down in the air unless 
its size were considerable, which would only be the case occasionally, 
One may, I think, conclude this, for otherwise the object would be 
visible, either carried in the bill, or in its fall through the air; and 
this it is not, It would certainly be to the peewit’s interest to 
