The Love of Birds for their Young 



THE love of birds for their young differs greatly from 

 human love. 



It is a passing love. The robin, when his young are 

 fledged, drives them from the garden he haunts, to 

 fight their own battles. And the birds do not mourn 

 for their young, it seems. When a cuckoo's egg is 

 hatched in a whitethroat's nest, the young cuckoo, 

 growing up, soon throws out any young whitethroats 

 there may be, so that they hang helpless on a bush 

 below the nest, or lie dying on the ground. The 

 mother whitethroat, returning, seems to pay them no 

 heed, but goes on feeding the cuckoo as if nothing had 

 happened ; though she must see the sad plight of her 

 offspring with each visit to the nest. 



Yet it is always beautiful and touching to see how 

 parent birds defend their young, and to watch their 

 pathetic wiles to lead you from their secret. The 

 wryneck, or snake-bird, hisses like a snake to frighten 

 you away from her chicks in the tree-hole. The lap- 

 wing plays the old, old trick of pretending to be 

 wounded, hoping that you will follow when she leads 

 you, fluttering, lapping a wing as if broken, from her 

 young. So the mother wild-duck pretends to be lame, 

 goes shuffling along, and even lies down as if dead, 

 acting so well that you think she really must be hurt 

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