the case, for they laid down what they pulled in different places, and several times they attacked each other and fought quite fiercely. With other birds, too, I have noticed a kind of rivalry between the females when collecting materials for the nest. Hen chaffinches seem particularly jealous of each other in this respect. They pull the lichens from the trunks of trees, fluttering up against them, and using both their claws and beaks, and when thus engaged, or when flying off with what they have got, two will often fly at each other and fight furiously in the air. I do not think that the one tries to take what the other has collected—there ought, one would think, to be enough for all—but, rather, that the sight of one when thus occupied, has an irritating effect on the other, and so it seemed to be with these two gulls.
Male gulls fight, too, as might be expected, the motive being usually, if not always, jealousy. Sometimes a little drama may be witnessed, as when a pair who would fain be tender are annoyed and hampered by a rejected suitor—the villain of the piece. This odious bird advances upon them with a menacing and, it would almost seem, a scandalised demeanour every time that he detects the smallest disposition towards an impropriety of behaviour, and when the husband-lover rushes furiously upon him he flies just out of his danger, and acts in the some way on the next occasion, which is immediately afterwards. This goes on for some time, the envious bird becoming more and more rancorous and more and more torn between rage and discretion every time valour assaults him. At last rage carries it, and, strange to say,—considering it as melodrama—he, the villain, makes
