January—Tremendous activity may now be noted among the birds of our gardens, as distinguished from those migrants "and winter visitors whicn "are more generally to be observed in the surrounding country. In particular, our Blackbirds fores themselves upon my notice by their present belligerent attitude: two weeks ago 1 counted eight Blackbirds feeding in my garden quite peace: fully; but during the past few days distinct change has taken place li {their bebsviour. To begin with, hear their song more often; but much more important is the fact that they fare Aghting dally for their ithe place in the sun." To my mind this Jean only mean that they have sensed the fact that next Spring is not far away, and each male is already lay-Ing, plans to ght for" a suitable territory in whicl (o instal his future mate, "The fact that he insists on singing too, is ominous... for is not song always a concomitant of warlike operations? Men sing as they go out to Right: horses neigh, asses bray and snakes hiss when excited... s0 why should not birds sing? "No Bulbul begins or ends a fight without a janatch of song, and when the Blackbirds begin to sing you may know that thoughts of Spring are' in the air... even two- months or more ahicad of the time, The most interest= ing phenomenon in the case of the Blackbirds Is, perhaps, the abundant evidence that they hive an exaggerate ed sense of "territorial rights": even now, with Spring so far behind, they are fighting ilkee demons for the sole rights of water and food in the litle territories they have chosen. To my mind they are the mast obvious fol lowers of Plate who declared. that "might "is right, and justice the Interest of the stronger": for this theory certainly seems to work out correctly in the case of birds!
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.