^8 TRANSACTIONS, NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY OF GLASGOW 



present I could not have credited swallows with the 

 power of producing it. Another and another in like 

 manner — each more or less careful of his toilet — 

 left the nest, the excitement becoming greater and 

 greater as one young bird after another joined the 

 flock. At last only one, evidently a weakling, 

 remained in the nest ; and it took some ten minutes 

 of this coaxing — numbers of the birds actually pass- 

 ing into the nest — to induce it to leave. Such was 

 the iDressure i^ut upon the bird that its leaving the 

 nest could hardly be called a voluntary act. But 

 however this may be, when it stood on the edge of 

 the nest it looked smaller than the birds that pre- 

 ceded it ; and when it took to the wing it was un- 

 able to rise, although it made a strong efPort to do 

 so. The heavy strokes of its somewhat clumsy-look- 

 ing wings, being small for the size of its body, were 

 quickly interpreted by the whole mass of the birds, 

 whose screaming now baffled description. It had 

 hardly sunk half-a-storey below the nest when the 

 birds crowded under it, and literally floated it to 

 the house-top, where it remained, being unable to 

 proceed further.* The circling mass of birds, that 

 but a moment before was wild with excitement, be- 

 came mute as bats, and almost simultaneously passed 

 southwards. In less than five minutes one of the 

 birds returned, having left the ninety-and-nine to 

 seek the lost one ; and having fed it from the wing, 

 in the endearing manner of its kind, with a last 

 "good-bye" took itself off. 



* Mr. James Steel, a member of the Society, informs me that 

 about six years ago he witnessed a somewhat similar occurrence 

 in Cross-shore Street, Greenock, where he was attracted by a 

 crowd intently watching on the street a jackdaw that had 

 been disabled by a missile. Two others, attracted by the cries 

 of the wounded bird, came to its assistance ; it being unable 

 to fly, each took a side, and supporting it from below, they 

 lifted it to the door-lintel of the adjoining building, where they 

 rested, afterwards lifting their charge to the window immedi- 

 ately above the door. Thus, step by step, the two jackdaws 

 set their wounded companion on the top of the Bank building, 

 whore further ol)S(^rvation from the street was impossible. 



