Page:Bird Haunts and Nature Memories - Thomas Coward (Warne, 1922).pdf/222

164 the stoat or fox is at work, the fierce sparrowhawk or relentless carrion crow has secured a victim. And at night the cries of fear, the shrieks of pain are frequent and startling, for then the nocturnal carnivores and the owls are hunting. The stoat and weasel attack the rat, itself a ferocious marauder; the fox stalks and captures the rabbit, or rudely disturbs the slumbers of the roosting bird; the otter slays the flapper and the strong-jawed pike, which is itself responsible for the murder of many a downy infant coot and grebe. The noisy jay could tell why some of the birds are childless; its blue eye discovered the nest. The gentle dunnock, the trustful robin, the ever-busy little wren killed the spider when it was thrusting its poison fangs into the nerve ganglia of the predaceous fly, whose beak was plunged into a smaller member of its order when it blundered into the fatal snare. The dragonfly and other hovering insects are keenly seeking possible victims; the wasp bears off the dismembered but still moving prey to the ever-hungry grubs. The solitary wasp laboriously drags the paralysed spider or caterpillar to be entombed alive for the edification of its still unborn children, children which it will never see; sealed in the tunnel the captive, inert but alive, will be consumed by a future wasp. The young thrush sees the bumble-bee and disables it with a peck, then, scared by the angry buzz, leaves it to perish; the ants hasten the end. The lumbering dor-beetle, wandering across the ride, carries with it a host of parasitical mites; if these are bloodsuckers its days are numbered.

What is the real condition, what the actual feelings of these inhabitants of a joyful and beautiful world which is scarred and stained with the lust of blood? We cannot tell, but we may hazard a guess. We are predatory, flesh-eating animals ourselves; we, too, live in an atmosphere of accident, outrage, and sudden death. We know