Image from the Biodiversity Heritage Library.
Contributed by Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, University of California, Berkeley.
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Transcription
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Greenie, choosing his stance deliberately, again struck him inside the
mouth. I cannot tell, of course, how hard the blows were, but they
were swift. It may be, in the language of the prize ring, that they
were "pulled", for Snooty did not retreat or cry out, though, as Greenie
went off again, he got out of the dish and once more came to me for
food. I could see no signs of injury. He then went off about 7 feet
to dry himself--he had not had time to get very wet--and then Brownie
came from another direction. When he saw her approaching he lay down
and put the tip of his bill on the ground--a pathetic figure. Brownie
circled about him quietly at a distance from him of only a foot. He
tried to face her without rising from the ground, but she kept pretty
well behind him and suddenly jumped upon him and knocked him over on
his back and seemed to peck him, but there was no outcry. It was hard
for me to remember that Brownie is my oldest friend amongst the thrash-
ers and that the adults are merely carrying out the Law in the manner
presumably prescribed and that it would be useless to interfere, yet
when she then came to me plainly expecting a worm, I gave it to her,
but not as a reward for courageous, sportsmanlike conduct. Snooty
had not run away in the meantime, so Brownie approached him again and
he retreated slowly toward a little cave at the base of an Old Man
sage and crawled into it as far as he could. It was not big enough
to hold him. Brownie walked all about him looking at him, but he
kept his head concealed and she walked off. He then went into the
bushes. I went out of the glade and on my way back, in about three min-
utes, I saw both adults after him again, following him on the path
through the orchard. They pursued him for 75 yards from the glade.
I followed and they quit, scrapping loudly. When I overtook Snooty,
going by a roundabout route so as not to appear in league with his
pursuers, he was taking refuge in the thick brush. So I went back to
the glade slowly and when I got there, there he was! As he was still