xxii INTRODUCTION. 



that was water he must cross, he knew not why ; but something told him 

 that his mother had done it before him, and he was flesh of her flesh, life 

 of her life, and had inherited her instinct (as we call hereditary memory in 

 order to avoid the trouble of finding out what it is and how it comes). 

 A duty was laid on him to go back to the place where he was bred ; and 

 now it is done, and he is weary and sad and lonely "*. 



But his sadness is short-lived. Food and sunshine quicken the blood 

 in his veins, and in a couple of days his merry song, like a little peal of 

 bells, enlivens the woods from sunrise to sunset, as he vies with his 

 brothers who swarm around him as to who can sing the loudest and the 

 sweetest. A week later the female Willow- Wrens arrive, and courting 

 and wedding are the order of the day, with, perchance, a fight or two 

 before everybody is happily paired. Then comes the all-important 

 business of nest-building; what consultations are held, what exploring 

 expeditions are made before a safe corner is found ! And in the con- 

 struction of the nest itself, the selection of dry grass for the materials of 

 the case (which must not be cup-shaped like most nests, but must have a 

 roof over it like the hood of a Hansom cab), and the collection of feathers 

 for the lining, not hair as their cousins the Wood- Wrens always use in all 

 these details who shall say how much of it has to be learnt ? surely it is 

 far more likely that most of it is the result of hereditary memory ! 



And so the life of the little bird goes on ; the eggs are laid and duly 

 sat upon and hatched. Every day the bird wanders far into the wood in 

 search of food ; but she never forgets the little clump of bilberries and 

 heather where her treasures lie concealed, and however far she wanders she 

 never forgets the way back again. What a wonderful memory she must 

 have ! every bush and tree of the forest for miles round must be known to 

 her and her mate. Then the patient way in which the parents teach their 

 young to fly and to feed, the quick way in which the young birds learn 

 not as if they were learning something new, but more like the recovering 

 of forgotten knowledge are all deeply interesting facts. 



By-and-by the sickening for the autumn moult, the leave-taking and 

 wishing good-speed to the young on their departure southwards on their 

 first migration, led perhaps by one or two restless birds who either have 

 not paired happily that season or have lost their broods early by some 

 accident, and finally the preparations for their own departure follow in 

 regular order. When the long journey is over (this time undertaken more 



* The latter portion of this paragraph is a quotation from an article by the Rev. 

 Charles Kingsley in ' Fraser's Magazine ' for 1867. The Jaisquivel is a mountain- pass a 

 little to the south of Biarritz beyond Fuenterrabia. It is undoubtedly selected as a route 

 for passing the chain of higher mountains by birds of passage of every kind ; but the 

 Spanish sportsmen assert that a still larger number of birds take the Lazarieta route, 

 known as "las Palomeras de Echalar." 



