i 7 8 JULY 



The wanderers had almost stepped on the group ; but 

 the only alarm was the curiosity of the chicks ; neither 

 parent showed any sign of fear whatever or desire to 

 flee. They turned their heads to look, and that was all. 

 Looks were interchanged, scarcely of suspicion from 

 the birds, wholly of wonder from the interruptors, who 

 at last and reluctantly, for all their hurry, dragged them 

 selves away from the pretty sight. 



No bird in the list gives evidence of such family affec 

 tion as binds the partridge family, both the breeding pair 

 and their chicks. They finely illustrate, psychologically 

 at any rate, the old proverb : Dieu benit les grandes 

 families. The number of the young has no doubt put 

 some compulsion on the male bird to play the mother. 

 A great many cock birds are gallant, are faithful, help 

 with the nest and the young. Among the daintiest sights 

 in natural history is the meeting of the Montagu harriers 

 in the air where the male passes his prey to the hen 

 after he has called her up to him from the low nest. The 

 male nightjar has the inherited habit peculiar to himself 

 of brooding the nest from exactly the twelfth day, in order 

 that the hen may lay another clutch. Time is short and 

 the family small, and migration a danger to life. By this 

 means only can the continuance of the race be assured. 

 The constant song of the cock nightingale, weaving 

 a canopy of protective music over the brooding hen, is an 

 expression of passionate affection, suppressed a little later 

 by the more silent business of feeding the young. It is 

 a delight that most of us have shared to watch a pair of 

 swallows all through the time when the nests are building, 

 when the hen is sitting, when the young are being fed : 

 they enjoy a singularly merry co-operation. Let no one 

 praise the partridge by the uncomely method of be 

 littling other parents. 



