XIX 
HIS AFFECTIONS 
I am sure I need not say that father and 
mother birds love their little ones. 
So much does the mother love her nestlings 
that she is often willing to die for them. Orioles 
and chickadees will let themselves be caught in 
the hand of one who has taken their young, 
rather than desert them. 
Some birds live in our chimneys, generally in 
a flue that is not in use, and are called chimney 
swifts. If a chimney takes fire the mother swift 
tries hard to get her little ones out, but if they 
cannot fly, she has been seen to fly into the fire 
herself, and die with them. 
Robins have been found frozen to death on 
their nest. They could easily have saved them- 
selves, but they would not leave their young ones 
to perish. A ground bird has been known to sit 
on her nest during a freezing storm, till she died, 
rather than go and leave her little ones to suffer. 
Once when a young cedar-bird was caught 

