JULY. 121 



DELAYED CHICKS. 



Besides sadly reducing their numbers, the bad 

 weather of early summer affected the output of 

 partridge chicks in another way ; for, although three 

 weeks and three days is the proper period of incuba- 

 tion, gamekeepers who had charge of large and well- 

 stocked areas, and counted the days which many 

 scores of partridges spent upon their nests, probably 

 found no single case in which the birds came off at 

 the proper time. A chilly season affects all birds in 

 this way a pair of swans, for instance, took eight 

 days longer than usual to incubate their eggs be- 

 cause, no doubt, the embryo bird within the shell 

 develops slowly when deprived of some of the warmth 

 which it needs. This would matter less if all the eggs 

 in a nest were equally affected ; but the outer ones 

 are delayed the longer, and often one finds that the 

 mother bird has left the nest with part only of her 

 family, leaving several nearly born to perish. Ducks 

 that nest in the hedgerows are sometimes especially 

 aggravating, when they come marching proudly but 

 anxiously down to the water with a miserable follow- 

 ing of three or four ducklings only, and examination 

 of the nest shows that another day's patience would 

 have given seven or eight more children. Yet perhaps 

 we are wrong to be annoyed with the duck and call 

 her " stupid." She knows better than we when the 

 health of her young demands that they should be 

 led out to feed, and by the experience of ages her 

 race may have learnt that it is unwise to imperil the 

 few that one has on the chance of more that may or 

 may not come. 



