This is a common action of the rooks, and I saw this same bird feed hismate on other occasions during the winter months, when I have no doubtthat he, poor wretch, could hardly find food enough to keep himselfalive during the unlit season of everlasting wind and rain when the dimdaylight lasted for about six hours. But I never saw a daw or starlingfeed his mate, or feed another daw or starling, although I watchedclosely every day and often for an hour at a stretch, and though I amconvinced that the starling, like the rook and crow and daw, and in factall the Corvidae, pairs for life. To this point I will return presently;let me first relate another incident about our frivolous andirresponsible young cow.

0ne afternoon when the cows were in the field, some herring-gulls driftedby and a few of them remained circling about somewhat above the field. I threwout a piece of goat cheese, and a troop of starlings rushed to it, and one ofthe gulls dropped down and took possession of it, but had scarcely begantearing at it when two more gulls dropped down and the first bird,lifting his wings began screaming "Hands off!" at the others, and theothers, also raising their wings, screamed their wailing screams inreply. The youthful cow, attracted by the noise, gazed at them for a fewmoments, then all at once putting her head down furiously charged them.The three gulls rose up simultaneously and floated over her and thenaway, leaving her standing on the spot, shaking her head in wrath anddisgust at their escape. A rhinoceros charging a ball of thistledown ora soap-bubble, and causing it to float away with the wind it created,would not have been a more Iudicrous spectacle.