A BIRD-STORY.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPZOTATOR.'9 SIR,—I should very much like to know whether any of your readers have witnessed episodes similar to the following. While driving yesterday from Cobham to Esher Station, my attention was arrested by a scuffling in a tree at the roadside, caused, aa I then saw, by a squirrel and either a rook or a crow at close quarters. After the first brush the
bird rose a few feet into the air, and then alighted on another bough of the same tree, still pursued by the squirrel, who was the apparent aggressor. A renewed momentary scrimmage ensued, and the bird again retired, this time alighting upon the extremity of one of the upper branches, followed hotly as before by the squirrel. The necessity for catching a train prevented my staying to see the matter out; but my last glimpse of the pair showed the bird hovering with dangling legs just out of the squirrel's reach, the latter sitting erect with outstretched head in a menacing attitude.--I am, Sir,.
L. L. S.
[We remember just such combats in the world of leaves and branches. Probably the squirrel had been caught trying to steal eggs.—En. Spectator]
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