184 HOUSE-MARTIN. 



with tender assiduity, carry out what comes away 

 from their young. Was it not for this affectionate 

 cleanliness, the nestlings would soon be burnt up, 

 and destroyed in so deep and hollow a nest, by 

 their own caustic excrement. In the quadruped 

 creation, the same neat precaution is made use of ; 

 particularly among dogs and cats, where the dams 

 lick away what proceeds from their young. But 

 in birds there seems to be a particular provision, 

 that the dung of nestlings is enveloped in a tough 

 kind of jelly, and therefore is the easier conveyed 

 off without soiling or daubing. Yet, as Nature is 

 cleanly in all her ways, the young perform this 

 office for themselves in a little time by thrusting 

 their tails out at the aperture of their nest. As 

 the young of small birds presently arrive at their 

 ?/XiJctct, or full growth, they soon become impatient 

 of confinement, and sit all day with their heads 

 out at the orifice, where the dams, by clinging to 

 the nest, supply them with food from morning to 

 night. For a time the young are fed on the wing 

 by their parents ; but the feat is done by so quick 

 and almost imperceptible a slight, that a person 

 must have attended very exactly to their motions, 

 before he would be able to perceive it. As soon 

 as the young are able to shift for themselves, the 

 dams immediately turn their thoughts to the 

 business of a second brood ; while the first flight, 

 shaken off and rejected by their nurses, congregate 

 in great flocks, and are the birds that are seen 

 clustering and hovering, on sunny mornings and 

 evenings, round towers and steeples, and on the 

 roofs of churches and houses. These congregations 

 usually begin to take place about the first week in 

 August ; and therefore we may conclude that by 

 that time the first flight is pretty well over. The 

 young of this species do not quit their abodes all 



