Page:Bird-lore Vol 03.djvu/143

 128 Bird - Lore surprisin.Li: skill in mimicry, tiic bird fluttered painfully alon^, ever just beml my reach until it hati led me a hundred feet or more from its younsi. and then, the feat eviilently successful, it sailed away again, to perch first on a fence and later on a limb in characteristic, length- wise Nighthawk atti- tude. How are we to account for the devel- opment in so many birds of what is now a common habit ? Ducks, Snipe, Grouse, Doves, some ground - nesting Sparrows and Warblers, and many other species, also feign lameness with the object of drawing a supposed enemy from the vicinity of their nest or young. Are we to believe that each individual, who in this most reasonable manner opposes strategy to force, does so intelligently? Or are we to believe that the habit has been acquired through the agency of natural selection and is now purely instinctive? Probably neither question can be answered until we know beyond question whether this mimetic or deceptive power is inherited. NIGHTH.^WK FEIGNING LAMENESS MGHTH.AVVK ON 1. 1MB