100 TALKS ABOUT BIRDS 



they run and swim about all right. Young 

 sea-gulls can also run and swim, but they do 

 not do so much, and the old ones find nearly 

 all the food, and throw it up from their 

 stomachs for them, when the little gulls either 

 take it from their beaks or pick it up from the 

 ground, and this goes on till the young gulls 

 can fly well. So the young gulls are getting 

 into lazy ways ; but it is the best thing they 

 can do, for gulls generally build close together, 

 so as to be able to join in defending their eggs 

 and young, and with such a number living in 

 the same place the young ones would never 

 be able to get enough to eat if they tried 

 looking for food themselves. 



Some birds have very strange ways of 

 looking after their young ; and these can be 

 studied among our own wild birds in some 

 cases. Moorhens have more than one brood 

 in the year, and when the first young ones 

 are feathered, but long before they can fly, 

 they find another lot of little brothers and 

 sisters have been hatched off, and the older 

 young birds help their parents to feed these 

 new ones. This is a very unusual way of doing 

 things, but no doubt the helpful ways of the 



