456 POWEE OF CALCULATION. 



blackbirds, and starlings, the pensioners of a certain Lady 

 Bountiful in one of the western suburbs of Edinburgh. 



These birds came for years, and still come, all the year 

 round, to be fed at a certain time eight o'clock in the morn- 

 ing their meal consisting of bread-crumbs from the break- 

 fast table. They hover on neighbouring trees and bushes, in 

 the garden of the house, about the proper hour, and wait 

 patiently till they see or hear a certain window opened and 

 their bountiful provider appears with a plateful of bread- 

 crumbs prepared for being thrown out. Then they alight 

 on the grass, and are as ready for their work as a crowd of 

 city boys would be to scramble for a handful of coppers cast 

 among them. After picking up the fragments the birds dis- 

 perse, not to reappear, at least in a body, till next morning. 

 How or why they come to congregate in the proper place 

 at the proper time I am not prepared to explain. They may 

 be guided simply by observation of the signs that indicate 

 the approach of breakfast the opening of shutters, the 

 movement of servants, the sounds of breakfast trays and 

 crockery, and the law of association of ideas, which is as 

 operative in them as in man, probably connects these phe- 

 nomena of morning life in the household with that which 

 invariably forms a part of the phenomena though a subse- 

 quent part their own breakfast. There is unquestionably 

 both observation and inference in their action when a cer- 

 tain window is opened and a certain lady appears at it with 

 her bread-platter. 



A correspondent of ' Science Gossip ' says of a tame 

 sparrow, ' With the time of the meals it is perfectly ac- 

 quainted, and does not fail at breakfast, dinner, and tea to 

 announce its presence by knocking with its beak at the 

 window until it is opened for its entry.' Dr. Carpenter is 

 responsible for a story about certain sparrows that frequented 

 a young ladies' boarding school at Bristol, and that knew 

 twelve o'clock on week days the hour and days on which 

 the girls ate their luncheon in the play- ground, the dropped 

 crumbs from which luncheon became the food of the birds. 

 They gathered on the garden walls a little before twelve, and 

 waited till the playground was empty of girls, when their 



