SWIFTS, SWALLOWS AND MARTINS 
twittering broods in roofless nests. No doubt 
the birds realised that they had nothing to 
fear from rain, and were reluctant to waste 
time and labour in covering their homes with 
unnecessary roofs. 
Most birds are careful in the education of 
their young, and indeed thorough training at 
an early stage must be essential in the case of 
creatures that are left to protect themselves 
and to find their own food when only a few 
weeks old. Fortunately they develop with a 
rapidity that puts man and other mammals 
to shame, and the helpless bald little swift 
lying agape in the nest will in another fort- 
night be able to fly across Europe. One of 
the most favoured observers of the early 
teaching given by the mother-swallow to her 
brood was an angler who told me how, one 
evening when he was fishing in some ponds at 
no great distance from London, a number of 
baby swallows alighted on his rod. He kept 
as still as possible, fearful of alarming his 
interesting visitors, but he must at last have 
moved, for, with one accord, they all fell off 
his rod together skimmed over the surface 
of the water and disappeared in the direction 
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