56 HABITS OF BIRDS. 



Now we doubt not that these swallows crowded to 

 their companion, as M. Dupont has recorded, for all 

 small birds are apt to corne when called by their 

 fellows, as is well known to bird-catchers, who employ 

 call-birds to bring the wild ones to their nets ; but 

 we much doubt whether they united their efforts 

 with the design of cutting the string, and think the 

 observer must have been deceived as to this parti- 

 cular. In a similar instance of a pair of sparrows 

 becoming entangled, which fell under our observa- 

 tion, their neighbours crowded to the place, but, 

 apparently, only for the purpose of scolding, not of 

 assisting, the entangled birds*. 



It is rare indeed among quadrupeds, and rarer 

 still, if it occur at all, among birds, to meet with 

 instances of mutual assistance, such as we find so 

 strikingly exemplified among social insects f- Beavers 

 unite in forming dams across a stream and in burrow- 

 ing out chambers in the banks ; but stories are told of 

 the mutual assistance of some other quadrupeds, evi- 

 dently as much overcoloured as that of M. Dupont's 

 swallows. Thus the preparation of a winter abode 

 by the marmot (Arctomys marmota, A. Bobac, &c.,) 

 which has always excited admiration, has been, as is 

 usual in such cases, greatly exaggerated by the fancies 

 of inaccurate observers. " Their wit and understand- 

 ing," says Gesner, " is to be admired ; for, like beavers, 

 one of them falleth on the back, and the residue load 

 his belly with the carriage, and when they have laid 

 upon him sufficient, he girteth it fast by taking his 

 tail in his mouth, and so the residue draw him into 

 the cave; but I cannot," he well adds, "affirm cer- 

 tainly whether this be truth or falsehood ; for there is 

 no reason that leadeth thereunto, but that some of 

 them have been found bald on the backj." This 

 evident fable is still gravely stated by some writers 

 * See Architecture of Birds, p. 319. 



t Insect Miscel. iii. J Hist, of Anijn. byToplis, p. 407, 



