Thomas Coward

“ One bird, presumably the male, captures a shining silvery sand-eel, and with this dangling from his red bill flies in search of a suitable mate. A female, settled on some wave-washed rock or on the sandy shore, greets him open-mouthed with a long call of welcome, but she does not get his gift too easily. ”

“ It is a strange performance, hard to interpret; man cannot fathom the psychology of the tern. There are other passages in which both birds strike attitudes, raising their bills skyward and depressing half-open wings, but the fish gift is the act of greatest importance. This is hardly surprising, since the tern's life depends on its ability to capture suitable fish. ”

“ Within a few yards, hanging from a branch, were half a dozen wind-dried, tailless corpses, all of stoats which had been so anxious to investigate every possible hole or tunnel that they had blundered into the cunningly prepared trap in a drainpipe. Sooner or later, this particular stoat will probably join them and lose its black-tipped tail; every tail means vermin money. ”

“ Clinging, too, like withered leaves, are the variable males, some with dark bands, some quite pale, others again bandless, their wings merely peppered with buff or brown. This is the third autumn running when this troublesome moth has been far above the normal ”

“ The longest-living author of this work died in 1933, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 90 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works. ”