THE FASCINATION OF ANIMALS.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] SIE,—The author of your interesting article on "The Fascination of Animals," in the Spectator of February 25th. attributes the capture of a brood of fledged birds, with their parent, by a snake, either to a momentary collapse of resolu- tion or to the rebound of over-stretched precaution. I once witnessed a similar disaster, due, I believe, to a sustained resolution to face death. A. friendly tailor bird (Orthotoinus sutorius, reared its offspring in the leaves of a cissus which climbed my verandah at Poona. As I read at night in my easy chair, with a lamp beside me, I could have reached the neat with my hand, but the family had the fullest confidence in me. The small birds were just able to leave the nest when
a cobra discovered them, and filled its mouth with them. I was at lunch at the time, and the cries and distracted flutterings of the parent birds attracted my attention. Going out. I saw the cobra hurrying away across the drive to its shelter in a rockery. The birds flew at the enemy, . evidently trying to assist the escape of one of the young birds that was alive in its mouth. I ran to the rescue, but only reached the rockwork to see the cobra, by a sudden dart, seizing one of the parent birds, and withdrawing with it into the rockwork. The misery of the survivor as it flew from the cissus to the rockery, and back again, with cries of despair, was quite piteous. But I saw nothing, either in the plan of rescue adopted or in its execution, which looked like a collapse of resolution or over-confidence. "Catch me if you can, and let my fledgling escape," seemed to be the plan of campaign.
—I am, Sir, &c., W. LEE-WARNER. Bickley, Kent, February 27th.
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