BIRDS AND ALL NATURE. ILLUSTRATED BY COLOR PHOTOGRAPHY. VOL. IV. SEPTEMBER, 1898. NO. 3. Page SOME ANIMAL PROPENSITIES. 81 THE PETRIFIED FERN. 83 WATER AND ANIMALS. 84 THE HERRING GULL. 87 USEFUL BIRDS OF PREY. 88 THE RACCOON. 91 WILD BIRDS IN LONDON. 92 THE PIGMY ANTELOPE. 95 BIRDS OF ALASKA. 95 THE RED-SHOULDERED HAWK 96 THE DOVES OF VENICE. 100 BUTTERFLIES. 102 THE FOX. 105 THE GRAY FOX. 106 MISCELLANY. 109 THE GRAY SQUIRREL. 110 AH ME! 113 THE PECTORAL SANDPIPER. 114 EYES. 117 THE HUNTED SQUIRREL. 119 SUMMARY. 120 SOME ANIMAL PROPENSITIES. It is not quite agreeable to contemplate many of the shortcomings, from a moral point of view, of certain of the animal creation, and even less to be compelled to recognize the necessity of them. Thievery in nature is widely extended, and food is the excuse for it. Civilization has made the practice of the humanities possible among men, but the lower animals will doubtless remain, as they have ever been, wholly subject to the instincts with which nature originally endowed them. Huber relates an anecdote of some Hive-bees paying a visit to a nest of Bumble-bees, placed in a box not far from their hive, in order to steal or beg the honey. The Hive-bees, after pillaging, had taken almost entire possession of the nest. Some Bumble-bees, which remained, went out to collect provisions, and bringing home the surplus after they had supplied their own immediate wants, the Hive-bees followed them and did not quit them until they had obtained the fruit of their labors. They licked them, presented to them their probosces, surrounded them, and thus at last persuaded them to part with the contents of their "honey-bags." The Bumble-bees did not seem to harm or sting them, hence it would seem to have been persuasion rather than force that produced this instance of self-denial. But it was systematic robbery, and was persisted in until the Wasps were attracted by the same cause, when the Bumble-bees entirely forsook the nest.