The Audubon Societies 299 



them. The European Woodcock, on the other hand, is said to convey its 

 young to suitable feeding-spots between its thighs, flying with dangling legs, 

 and it is apparently a common practice with Rails to seize their young by 

 any convenient appendage and rush them to safety. 



The varying degrees of attachment for their young which birds show and 

 their methods of expressing it are always interesting to observe. Few birds 

 seem to feel much of a parental instinct when the young are freshly hatched. 

 The instinct increases daily and reaches a maximum at the time the young are 

 ready to leave the nest. The same is true of the bird's instinct to incubate. 

 When the eggs are freshly laid the birds will desert them readily, but at the 

 time they are hatching, even the most timid birds will cling to the nest in the 

 presence of danger. Bird photographers should always bear this in mind and 

 never try to photograph birds at their nests when they are just beginning to 

 incubate or just beginning to brood. Most Hawks, Herons, Cormorants, 

 Pelicans, Yellow-breasted Chats, and Mourning Doves have their parental 

 instincts very poorly developed and readily desert their eggs or young in 

 the presence of danger. Most Chickadees, and a great many Warblers and 

 Vireos, on the other hand, have their parental instincts so highly developed 

 that they pay no attention to dangers while they are incubating or brooding. 

 At least they will permit of very close approach and even let you stroke 

 them while they cling to the nest. Between the two extremes there are all 

 gradations, no two birds behaving 

 exactly alike in the defense of their 

 nests or young. 



Many birds feign being wounded 

 in an attempt to lure one away from 

 the nest and drag themselves pitifully 

 over the ground in the hope that the 

 enemy will follow them and lose track 

 of the nest or young. Other birds dart 

 at one's head and attempt to inflict 

 blows with their bills, their wings, or . <»\ , '"" -, ,* v !Kl 



their talons, while the majority '"■*«*>■- V,iV.-v*^*f- - " '< *,--... . 



1 a • i- . 1 i j A BABY RUFFED GROUSE TWO DAYS OLD 



merely express their distress by loud A good example of a precocial young] well covered wjth 

 calls which attract all the other birds down and wide awake when hatched 



. ... Photographed by A. A. Allen 



to the vicinity. 



It is interesting to observe the varying times at which fear first develops 

 in the young birds. It is apparently instilled into them by their parents, for 

 when eggs from wild birds are hatched under domestic birds, the young seem 

 never to develop the sense of fear for human beings. There are some exceptions 

 to this statement, however, especially among precocial birds which are ex- 

 tremely timid even when hatched under most quiet hens and lose their fear 

 very gradually. In the wild state, precocial young seem to respond to this 







