May 20—Do birds play? Move they cot a sense of humour? Are they just_mechanical puppets in the great scheme of Nature. have they got individuality which cries, moans or sighs, according to the moment? That i= a question which often been asked, and 1 cannot help. fect that the answer to the latter question is in the affirmative. Let me give a few examples, 3 den Magpies have grown up and every day give me examples of hel celings: the three eldest. which I take to be Birls, spend a lot of their time in the country how'; they go to some times, which, after all, is about as much you can expect from the gentler sex. The two Youngest who are, T am sure, boys, sit up in the willow tree and engage in private combat or three times a day they ly up into the fair and struggle for the higher position... which, according (0 birdlore, gives them the decision in any boxing round: Aywon and Piccolo have several fights per day, but as soon as they have fought and nearly tumbled to the ground, they ly back to their tree and. sit amicably together. That certainly makes them boys. Piccolo has a definite imp owing to} some childish accident, but he gets a large share of any food offered and will soon develop into a real he-man. Then take the case of the Sparrows: one little chap whose mother feeds him most faithfully every morning has discovered that the Jeg of a bird-table makes an excellent toboxgan-run: he fies to the top of the wood and then slide: down backwards.
Tanding on the grass in excellent style: Mother comes and chides him, but he ix all Boy, with capital "B"....so he just gives her a nasty Took and flicks off 10 gather in another eat piller.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.