468 



ANIMAL LIFE-HISTORIES 



rustica) being fed on the wing, and says: " In a day or two 

 more they become flyers, but are still unable to take their own 

 food; therefore they play about near the place where the dams 

 are hawking for flies; and, when a mouthful is collected, at a 

 certain signal given, the dam and the nestling advance, rising 

 towards each other, and meeting at an angle, the young one 

 all the while uttering such a little quick note of gratitude and 

 complacency, that a person must have paid very little regard 

 to the wonders of Nature that has not often remarked this 

 feat." It must be added to these extracts that both in the 

 Swallow and the House -Martin the father performs his full 



share of the arduous 

 work of feeding the 

 young. 



R. and C. K ear- 

 ton of recent years 

 have made many 

 remarkable photo - 

 graphs of bird - life, 

 and by means of ar- 

 tificial rubbish-heaps 

 and other ingenious 

 devices have been 

 able to hide them- 

 selves sufficiently near to the nests of a number of familiar 

 forms to observe all the details of their domestic economy. The 

 following passage (from Wild Life at Home] vividly describes 

 the way in which a particular mother Skylark (Alauda arvensis) 

 fed and tended her young (fig. 988): " In a few minutes along 

 came the lark, and hovering over her chicks for a few seconds, 

 like a toy-bird suspended on the end of a bit of elastic, called 

 to them in twittering notes, at which signal of her presence 

 they all shot up their heads and opened their orange-coloured 

 mouths ridiculously wide. She quickly alighted, and running 

 up, gave each a small worm, which she appeared to fetch from 

 the back of her throat. Generally, one of the worms which 

 she brought was visible in her bill, but this was by no means 

 always the case. When she had distributed her supply of food 

 she waited for a moment, and then, thrusting her head into 

 the depths of the nest, attended to its sanitary arrangements 



Fig. 988. Skylark (Alauda arvensis] at her Nest 



