. Mutton birds and other birds . n exhortationto be careful, and some appearance of feignedanger, the wanderer in reply twisting andsnaking his nock and head. Shags of this breedappear to possess for their little ones, rather thepractical affection of a just step-mother, thana parents tender love; and the cries of the littleones are, I imagine, mostly set down to be justnonsense, not to be encouraged. Standing upright on the nest with an absentair and cold, grey, distrait eyes fixed on the dis-tant sea and sky, the parent bird will for minutesat a time endure unmoved the importunities ofher fa
. Mutton birds and other birds . n exhortationto be careful, and some appearance of feignedanger, the wanderer in reply twisting andsnaking his nock and head. Shags of this breedappear to possess for their little ones, rather thepractical affection of a just step-mother, thana parents tender love; and the cries of the littleones are, I imagine, mostly set down to be justnonsense, not to be encouraged. Standing upright on the nest with an absentair and cold, grey, distrait eyes fixed on the dis-tant sea and sky, the parent bird will for minutesat a time endure unmoved the importunities ofher family. She is a study in detachment,immovable, cold, statuesque, whilst immediatelybeneath her one, or often the whole batch ofyoungsters, sit up, yammering, their long necksstretched to the utmost, and wriggling andshivering in expectancy. The cadence of theirperfectly monotonous whine in its regular riseand fall, is precisely like that part of an asssbray when the Hee and the Haw aresounded on air inhaled. This intolerable call. AND OTHER BIRDS 169 after a little, seems to proceed less from hopetlian from mere inability to cease. In thatattitude and with that cry, for minutes together,they beseech, with the iteration of a litany, theirmother to hear them. When perhaps the limitof endurance has been reached, or when, as Ithink more probable, she merely requires achange of position, she will proceed, without somuch as a glance or touch, to sit on them. Thewhining ceases at once, but still from beneathher, like the limbs of the princes smothered inthe Tower, a long neck here and another therewill dart at intervals. Then all is quiet, theobserver feels that their agonies are over, andthat life must be extinct. At last she sitsenthroned on her brood, complacent and cool,and about as emotional, as one of those dishcovers representing in cheap ware, a broody about to feed the young the parent birdstands upright and at full height. With hermouth held high above the excited ch
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, bookidmuttonbirdso, bookyear1914
