44 OUR HUMBLE HELPERS 



chickens already know how to peck food and how 

 to run around the mother who, clucking, leads the 

 way. They have besides a little fur of downy hair 

 that clothes them warmly. This development is not 

 found in all birds; far from it. Pigeons, for ex- 

 ample, come naked from the egg and do not know 

 how to eat ; the father and mother have to feed them 

 by disgorging a mouthful of food into their beaks. 

 The young of the warbler, chaffinch, goldfinch, tomtit, 

 lark, in fact of nearly all the field birds, are naked, 

 very weak, at first blind, and completely incapable of 

 feeding themselves, even with the food just under 

 their beaks. The parents, with infinite tenderness, 

 have for a number of days to bring it to them and 

 put it into their beaks." 



"That is a difference that has always struck me/' 

 commented Jules. "Little sparrows open their 

 mouths wide to receive the food offered them, but 

 for a long time they do not know how to take it even 

 if it is put at the very end of their beak. On the 

 contrary, little chickens easily pick up from the 

 ground for themselves the seeds and worms that the 

 mother digs up for them. ' * 



"I will tell you, if you do not already know," con- 

 tinued Uncle Paul, "that the young of the duck, tur- 

 key, goose, and, among wild birds, the partridge and 

 quail, have the same precocity as those of the hen. 

 They are clothed with down on coming out of the egg, 

 and know how to eat. One of the causes of this dif- 

 ference in the way young birds act immediately after 



