AUGUST, 1882. 215 



and there they took up their abode with the youngsters. 

 When anyone approaches they retire to some little 

 distance, but at once return as soon as the intruder leaves." 

 In fact, they have recognised the kinship of the little 

 ones, their want of parents to properly understand their 

 feelings and sympathise with their wilder yearnings, and 

 these birds of the wilderness have consequently felt it 

 their duty to take upon themselves the serious responsi- 

 bility of introducing the young strangers from a far 

 country among their brethren of the hillside. Descend- 

 ing to dull prose, the chances are that these are barren 

 birds, or a pair that have lost their brood ; but the remark- 

 able fact remains that they have recognised their kinship 

 with the little strangers, and overcome their fear of and 

 repugnance to human vicinage in their determination to 

 father them. When we consider the readiness with which 

 a hen will charge herself with ducks there is even a 

 turkey at South Connel with about a score of young 

 ducks small birds with cuckoos, and other still stranger 

 connections, it is a most valuable per contra fact to have 

 such a remarkable instance of acknowledgment of relation- 

 ship. 



Were it not that birds, as a rule, are rather oblivious 

 of distinctions, whether in a wild or domesticated state, 

 neither the cuckoo nor the henwife could play so many 

 pranks. A young nephew of ours, with a dry humour 

 and a shrewd turn for natural history, carried out a series 

 of rather novel experiments upon the credulity of birds 

 this year, and as they have a distinct bearing upon the 

 question before us, as well as helping to solve another 

 problem which seems still to require proof for some 

 observers, we will note them here. Having discovered 

 a sparrow-hawk's nest with two eggs, he removed one of 



