288 ADVENTURES AMONG BIRDS 



get dark at four o'clock, and the old birds settled 

 down with their young for the night. 



The following morning, although somewhat chilly, 

 was more like April than November, with a light 

 wind, a crystal clear sky, and a sunshine with a magic 

 in it to enliven the world and give renewed life even 

 to the perishing. The old birds had vanished and no 

 faintest sound came from the nest. I waited some 

 hours, then procured a ladder and took the nest down, 

 and found two full-grown dead young martins in it. 

 One had died that morning, probably at two or three 

 o'clock, before the turning of the tide of life; the 

 other looked as if it had died about two days before. 



This is but one case and it happens to be the only 

 one of an exceptionally late brood which I have had 

 an opportunity of observing closely, yet to me it does 

 suggest the idea that we may be mistaken after all in 

 our belief that the migratory impulse or passion will 

 cause the swallow to forsake its late-hatched offspring, 

 leaving them to perish of starvation in the nest. More 

 observation is wanted, but the case described inclines 

 me to think that so long as the young continue alive 

 and able to emit their hunger cry, the parental 

 instinct in the old birds remains dominant and holds 

 the migratory impulse in check or in abeyance; that 

 only when the insistent cry ceases and the young 

 birds grow cold the release comes and the "mighty 

 breath" blows upon and bears them away south- 

 ward irresisting as a ball of thistledown carried 

 by the air. 



I see that Dixon, in his Migration of Birds (1897), 



