YOUNG THINGS 



The Art highly exasperating their parents. But the 

 of being a little jays have a smart, wide-awake air 

 Jay even in the nest, and are apt pupils in 



mastering the art of avoiding life's dangers, 

 in when to scream and when to hold their garrulous 

 tongues. The old birds are model parents; the cock 

 does sitting duty, and there is no more danger for cock 

 than hen, since each is as gaily painted as the other. 

 The family party always seems on the best of terms, 

 the young staying with their parents almost to the 

 year's close. 



MANY and peculiar are the trials of a young sea-bird, 

 like a razorbill. On seeing light, it is in 

 A peril from rapacious gulls. Then it must 



Sea-Bird's face the hazardous feat of leaving the cliff- 

 Trials ledge for the sea: some fishermen declare 



the parents carry the young by the necks. 

 At sea, they are at once distressed by their parents 

 diving, and set up disheartened cries. Later, if wintering 

 in the far North, there may be leagues of ice to be 

 crossed: and a hungry fox in waiting if they fail and 

 fall. The razorbill, now with young on almost all our 

 coast cliffs, is always of peculiar interest, as being a 

 small edition of its vanished relative, the great auk. 



COB, the swan, is a proud bird to-day, with his grey- 

 billed, drab cygnets about him; his mag- 

 Trials of nificently proud bearing at once distin- 

 a Swan guishes him from his mate. The guarding 

 of her eggs during the long six weeks of 

 their hatching must have tested his devotion. Other 

 troubles come with moulting days, which mean that he 



95 



