BIRDS 



467 



would drive them from the hill with an amazing fury; even the 

 blue thrush at the season of breeding would dart out from the 

 clefts of the rocks to chase away the kestrel or the sparrow- 

 hawk. If you stand near the nest of a bird that has young, she 

 will not be induced to betray them by an inadvertent fondness, 

 but will wait about at a distance with meat in her mouth for an 

 hour together." The same naturalist describes as follows the way 



Fig. 987. Wild Duck defending her Brood against a Brown Rat 



in which the House -Martin (Ckelidon urbica] feeds its young 

 in their later stages: " As the young of small birds presently 

 arrive at their . . . full growth, they soon become impatient of 

 confinement, and sit all day with their heads out at the orifice, 

 where the dams, by clinging to the nest, supply them with food 

 from morning to night. For a time the young are fed on the 

 wing by their parents; but the feat is done by so quick and 

 almost imperceptible a flight that a person must have attended 

 very exactly to their motions before he would be able to per- 

 ceive it." White also observed young Swallows {Hirundo 



