Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 4 (1900).djvu/202

174 straggling line, ganglion-like in form, swelling out into knots where the birds were grouped more thickly, with thinner spaces between. Watched them mostly through the glasses. Characteristic actions were preening feathers of the breast and wings. The latter they stretch out, and then, twisting the neck to one or the other side, passed the primary quill-feathers, as it seemed to me, through the beak. Another—one of the birds near me—laid one side of the head on the ground so that I could see the eye of the other side staring up. This I observed for the first time. The reason I do not know. Thought at time it was to rub the head, but, as I have often seen them scratch their heads with one foot most neatly and effectively—as indeed do all birds—this would seem superfluous, and moreover it kept the head still.

Whilst watching the main body of birds I observed one make several sudden little impetuous runs in different directions, beating and striking about with its wings. There was excitement, but the actions seemed to have no reference to the other birds (as of display), who seemed quite indifferent. The line was long and in general very straggling, and this particular bird was not in any close proximity to others, but rather segregated.

One of the birds that had remained after the others flew off now came very near, so that—still using the glasses—I observed, as he made one of the little quick characteristic runs forward (suggestive of a Thrush on the lawn), the object which occasioned it—a delicate white thing in the air, which I took to be a small thistle-down. This he secured and ate, and I imagined that his peckings at it after it was in his possession were to disengage the seed from the down. Almost immediately afterwards, however, a small brown moth came into the field of view, flying low over the belt of dry bushy grass where the bird was. Instantly the bird (who seemed to catch sight of the moth about the same time as I did) started in pursuit, with the same rapid run and head stretched out. He got up to the moth and essayed to catch it, pecking at it in a very peculiar way, not excitedly or wildly, but with little precise pecks, the head closely and guardedly following the moth's motions, the whole strongly suggestive of professional skill. The moth eluded him, however, and the bird stopped rigidly, having apparently lost sight of it. Shortly afterwards, when the moth had gone some way, he caught sight of it again,