PUGNACITY IN BIRDS

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 7 August 1926, Page 11

PUGNACITY IN BIRDS

do birds fight about? This

question, is asked in an article in the Contemporary Review by Ashton Ililliers. Many contend for a ‘ l pitch, s ’ an area sufficient to rear a. family upon. Secondarily, for a mate —not necessarily a wife; one lias watched lien blackbirds battling almost to the the death for a handsome young bridegroom. Note gaimefowl and enjoy a good set-to. Jays, tits and, such unlikely pugilists as eagles and kites, will grapple in mid-air and come whirling to the ground' close-locked. In Reading Museum are the mounted skins of a pair of kestrels found inextricably engaged, which died when, picked up. Humming birds disgrace their beauty by fighting like imps of the pit—which is deplorable, but. in the absence of .avian courts matrimonial, must be put. up with. Murder is another story, and by murder one implies the killing' of a bird by another of his kind for reasons other than hunger or defence, and not in fair- fight. The workings and sanctions of the avian conscience are unknown to us, but between birds of a feather one must presume a. moral code and its infraction a crime. Upon a piece of open water, in Berkshire, a pair of swans set. upon a stranger of their species and held, the wretch's head under until life was extinct—a dark deed, despite the pliynage of its perpetrators; but one has witnessed a blanker. One thick March morning

DUELS TO THE DEATH.

USING BEAK AS A SPEAR.

the writer stood on Thames side at. Pangbourne, liis feet at the edge of a steep bank, close above the turbid current, his. vision bounded by white fog to a small semi circle of yellow water and half-a-dozen reeds, whence arose a strange, .persistent tweedling whistle that had, drawn him foot after foot to the spot. Close below him, side by

side upon a bent rush, sat a pair of kingfishers, the lady striking the pose proper to the occasion, ostentatiously indifferent to, her swain's carryingson. lie, poor soul, in e.stacy chanted her beauty and lii.s devotion ia that queer, tuneless falsetto, the rarely heard protlrolomiiun of his race, straddling and shifting upon tiny coral-red feet, his long bill open and pointed to the unheeding heavens. For, ’tis love, Mas love., ’tis love which makes the world go round. . . . and is re-

sponsible for other tilings, jealousy and murder, to wit. For while the lover swelled his ruddy bosom all unguarded, drumming his sides with azure wings, lvis rival was upon him. “Tertium Quid,” hurtling arrow-swift out of the fog, drove - a dagger-bill into the unshielded breast! Murder most foul! Ne’er was Sicilian stiletto sent home with more fiendish skill. “Sans,” squeak or flutter, the dead serenader. toppled from his perch., struck the yellow water, sank, nor rose again. Stone dead hath no fellow. Song,* love, and life were ended.