42 HISTORY OF THE 



pair, which in two or three days was reduced to 

 a single bird. The perseverance of this indivi- 

 dual made me suspect that the strongest of 

 motives, that of an attachment to her young, 

 could alone occasion so late a stay. I watched, 

 therefore, till the twenty-fourth of August, and 

 then discovered, that, under the eaves of the 

 church, she attended upon two young, which 

 were fledged, and now put out their white chins 

 from a crevice. These remained till the twenty- 

 seventh, looking more alert every day, and 

 seeming to long to be on the wing. After this 

 day, they were missing at once ; nor could I 

 ever observe them with their dam coursing round 

 the church, in the act of learning to fly, as the 

 first broods evidently do. On the thirty-first, I 

 caused the eaves to be searched, but we found 

 only two callow, dead swifts, on which a second 

 nest had been formed.** Now, although the 

 maternal affection of the female bird, in the 

 instance before us, was sufficiently powerful to 

 induce her to remain with her young, till they 

 were capable of accompanying her in a distant 

 journey, to a more genial climate, as is some- 

 times the case with house-martins, when deserted 

 by their mates, yet the conduct of the male, if 

 it does not absolutely establish the fact that 

 swifts occasionally abandon their offspring to 



