BIRDS— SPECIAL HABITS. 289 



the observation on the authority of his brother as eye- 

 "witness. The fowl had found good feeding-ground on 

 the further side of a stream four metres wide. She 

 adopted the habit of flying across with her chickens upon 

 her back, taking one chicken on each journey. She thus 

 transferred her whole brood every morning, and brought 

 them back in a similar way to their nest every evening. 

 The habit of carrying young in this way is not natural to 

 Orallinacese, and therefore this particular instance of its 

 'display can only be set down as an intelligent adjustment 

 <by a particular bird. 



Similarly, a correspondent (Mr. J. Street) informs me 

 of a case in which a pair of blackbirds, after having been 

 <iisturbed by his gardener looking into their nest at their 

 young, removed the latter to a distance of twenty yards, 

 and deposited them in a more concealed place. Partridges 

 -are well known to do this, and similarly, according to 

 Audubon, the goatsucker, when its nest is disturbed, re- 

 moves its eggs to another place, the male and female 

 both transporting eggs in their beaks. ^ 



Still more curiously, a case is recorded in ' Comptes 

 Eendu' (1836) of a pair of nightingales whose nest was 

 threatened by a flood, and who transported it to a safe place, 

 the male and the female bearing the nest between them. 



Now, it is easy to see that if any particular bird is in- 

 telligent enough, as in the cases quoted, to perform this 

 adjustive action of conveying young — whether to feeding- 

 grounds, as in the case of the hen, or from sources of 

 danger, as in the case of partridges, blackbirds, and goat- 

 suckers — inheritance and natural selection might develop 

 the originally intelligent adjustment into an instinct 

 common to the species. And it so happens that this has 

 actually occurred in at least two species of birds — viz., 

 the woodcock and wild duck, both of which have been re- 

 peatedly observed to fly with their young upon their backs 

 to and from their feeding-ground. 



Couch gives some facts of interest relating to the mode 

 of escape practised by the water-rail, swan, and some other 

 -aquatic birds. This consists in sinking under water, with 



' Orn. Biog., i., p. 276. 

 U 



