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 CHAPTER VII

BIRD SYMPATHY

O-DAY—which is my third here upon the island—I was actually assaulted by the terns. I saw a young one, now well advanced, that flew for a little and then went down on the grass. Walking towards it, a bird—presumably one of the parents—descended upon me twice in succession, and, with that angry and piercing cry that I have spoken or ought to have spoken of—it sounds very like a shrill "bah!"—delivered a fierce peck at my head, so that I felt it each time, quite unpleasantly, through the thin cloth of my cap. The difference is to be noted in this form of attack, to that employed by gulls and skuas, the former in battles inter se only, and the latter as against man in defence of their eggs or young. Both of them, when they thus "swoop to their revenge," use the feet only, and the superiority of the tern's method is so great that it makes this small bird almost as redoubtable—if this exaggerated word may be pardoned—as even the largest of the others. The Great Skua, especially, were it to use its powerful beak, would be really formidable, even to a man. In fighting with its fellows, it no doubt does so, and gulls, under these circumstances, make the greatest use of theirs. This, however, is when they struggle together on the ground; but when one fights on the ground 39