Extracts from Diary of Otto Widniann 7 



carry food to their brood, they also remove all their 

 alvine discharges. By the time the young folk appears 

 under the door it is already educated to cleanliness, and 

 a peculiar touch and motion of the parent has the effect 

 that the thus accosted member of the household turns 

 around and offers a white little pellet, which the attend- 

 ing parent seizes cleverly and carefully and carries it off 

 to a distance. Few young Martins die during the first 

 two weeks of their life, but the mortality is enormous 

 during the following two or three weeks, when in a hot, 

 dry season fully one-half were seen to perish. Exposed 

 to a merciless July sun, tormented by innumerable para- 

 sites, half dead with the sting of an empty stomach, des- 

 peration seizes the poor bird, when it is seen to lose its 

 hold and half falls, half flutters to the ground below. 

 Once down it is lost. If not killed outright by the fall, 

 it is soon found by an animal or, crawling under some 

 sheltering object, starves to death. The parents were 

 never seen to feed one on the ground. They content 

 themselves with a short endeavor to make it fly up, but 

 seeing that this is impossible they give it up as lost. 

 The assistance which man can give in this case is to 

 restore it to its nest, but the probability is that it will 

 fall out again. The best prevention of such disasters is 

 the free and often repeated application of insect powder, 

 scattered over young and nest. When four weeks old the 

 pinions are far enough advanced to earn*' the young bird 

 a short distance in the air and the parents decide that 

 the time has come when the offspring should leave the 

 nursery. This is the most critical moment in the life of 

 young Progne and bad judgment on the part of the par- 

 enis has cost many a child's life. Some young fellows, 

 unconscious of danger, follow the leading parent with- 

 out any trouble, but others, afraid of trusting the untried 

 wings, must be pushed off the platform and, when in the 



