TRAINING OF YOUNG BIRDS. 21? 



on the tiles, on a window-ledge, or on the projecting 

 bricks of a neighbouring chimney, basking them- 

 selves in the sunshine, and enjoying the freshness of 

 the summer air, and the parents, in their exuberance 

 of joy at having reared their young ones so far with- 

 out accident, may be seen flitting about from one to 

 another, and sometimes making short excursions to 

 the nearest tree as if to survey their young from a 

 different point of view, chuckling all the while with 

 buoyant delight, in tones which many observers 

 would not hesitate to interpret as invitations to the 

 little things to try their wings. We are more in- 

 clined, however, to consider the conduct of the parent 

 birds on such occasions as simply expressive of 

 pleasurable feeling ; and if an anxious movement or 

 the tremulous tone of fear be heard to intermingle, 

 it may usually, we think, be traced to the attempts 

 made by the young birds to fly, the old ones naturally 

 ^anticipating the possibility of danger, from the 

 known weakness of wing as well as the inexperience 

 of the young ones, placed as they usually are in such 

 cases, at a considerable height. It appears, indeed, to 

 be the chief recommendation of a nestling place, both 

 for sparrows and swallows, that it should have a good 

 fall, to aid their flight in starting on a journey. " I 

 have known window-swallows," says Mr. Couch, 

 " forsake a situation in which they had long been 

 accustomed to build, only because a low wall had 

 been erected in a situation that interfered with their 

 comfortably taking flight*." In other respects it 

 appears to us that the supposed instructions given 

 by the parent birds to the young, in the art of flying, 

 are exactly parallel with those given by ducks in the 

 art of swimming. We may in all fairness, indeed, 

 ask those who adopt the opinion of Bonnet above 

 quoted, how they suppose young frogs and 

 . * Mag. Nat, Hist, iv, 521. 



If 



