208 SUMMER 



more nimbly, skimming by the midsummer stream, where 

 the water-grasses rise tall around the sand-spits ; and the 

 young finches, watching on the bough, grow fewer, and turn 

 into busy hunters in the fields. Gradually the young birds 

 learn to feed themselves ; usually they seem to learn readily 

 after the first few days, by imitating their parents, but some- 

 times the children are backward, and the old birds have to 

 coax them to peck at some insect tit-bit, instead of feeding 

 them from beak to beak. Birds never appear in a prettier 

 light than when the fledgling is itself old and clothed 

 enough to be pretty, and the parents still feed the spoilt child 

 which follows them, and begs with trembling wings and 

 body. The quarrelsome and vulgar cock-sparrow becomes 

 a tender father, chewing up the cake-crumbs that we throw 

 him at tea-time on the lawn, and so softening them before he 

 gives them to his young. It is noticeable that only one 

 young sparrow is as a rule tended by the old birds in this 

 affectionate way. This helps to explain why the young one 

 depends so long on its parents, since it monopolises the 

 parental care which would have been distributed among a 

 larger family, and becomes rather ' spoilt ' and helpless. But 

 it also illustrates the swiftness with which the forces of 

 destruction act upon nestling and fledgling birds. Broods of 

 young sparrows usually run from three to six ; and yet, by 

 the time that they should have been fit to fend for them- 

 selves in the outer world, we often see only a solitary 

 survivor. 



Birds' flight is by some regarded as an instinctive gift, 

 while other naturalists have given fanciful accounts of the 

 care with which young birds are taught to fly by their 

 parents. The truth seems to lie between the two views, 

 and the readiness of young birds to fly seems much greater 

 in the case of the smaller species. Every field naturalist or 



