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Wild Life in Wales 



close down. They are always excessively fat, especially 

 when nearing their time for leaving the nest ; and, like their 

 parents, they exhibit next to no fear on being handled. 

 They climb adroitly about one's coat, or over any rough 

 surface, using the bill to help their progression, after the 

 manner of a parrot. The school children one day brought 

 me one, at Llanuwchllyn, which they had found " walking 

 about in the garden " ; it was so big and robust that at first I 

 thought it must have been injured so as to incapacitate it 

 from a flight it had already enjoyed, but a careful examina- 

 tion showed it to be perfectly sound, only that " it had not 

 learned the way to open its wings." There were several 

 nests in the eaves, twenty feet or so above the garden, so, 

 concluding that it must have fallen from one of these, we 

 placed it on the rough stone wall, and watched it climb its way 

 up to the spout. Here, however, it stopped ; and as there 

 were a number of sparrows nesting there, also, and we did 

 not wish to risk further harm coming to it, a ladder was 

 procured, and it was safely transferred to a nest, whose two 

 young ones seemed to match it in size. Two nests already 

 contained three young each, but they were not so fully 

 grown. Whether it was returned to its own parents or not, 

 we had no further means of knowing ; but as it disappeared 

 with the rest, it was probably safely reared, and I was the 

 more sanguine on its account, as in the church loft, already 

 alluded to, we used sometimes to think that a sort of free- 

 masonry existed amongst the birds whose nests closely 

 adjoined one another, and that with the young it was a case 

 of first come first served when an old one appeared with 

 a supply of flies. 



Most of the Swifts breeding in the village, in order to 

 get to their nests, have to pass above, or below, a dangerous 

 set of telephone wires, which hang right in their path, and 

 are considerably shaded by pendent beech branches. I 

 have watched the birds, for hours together, racing, and 

 chasing one another through and about these, but without 

 ever so much as once coming near an accident. How they 

 manage to steer clear of such dangers, at times when they 

 are dashing along at their greatest speed, and with their 



