October 22, 1897._
My dear Violet,--In your previous letter you asked me the conundrum, Why
does a wagtail wag its tail? That's quite easy, on Darwinian principles.
Many birds wag their tails. Some Eastern flycatchers--also black and
white--wag their long tails up and down when they alight on the ground
or on a branch. Other birds with long tails jerk them up in the air when
they alight on a branch. Now these varied motions, like the motions of
many butterflies, caterpillars, and many other animals, must have a use
to the animal, and the most common, or rather the most probable, use is,
either to frighten or to distract an enemy. If a hawk was very hungry
and darted down on a wagtail from up in the air, the wagging tail would
be seen most distinctly and be aimed at, and thus the bird would be
missed or at most a feather torn out of the tail. The bird hunts for
food in the open, on the edges of ponds and streams, and would be
especially easy to capture, hence the wagging tail has been developed to
baffle the enemy....
* * * * *
TO MISS VIOLET WALLACE
_Parkstone, Dorset. March 8, 1899._
My dear Violet,-- ... I have now finished reading the "Maha Bharata,"
which is on the whole very fine--finer, I think, than the "Iliad." I
have read a good deal of it twice, and it will bear reading many times.
It corresponds pretty nearly in date with the "Iliad," the scenes it
describes being supposed to be about B.
Pages:
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149