64 THE INFANCY OF ANIMALS 



so that the young ride, as it were, on a witch's broom. 

 The fact of this periodic transportation was long since 

 placed on record by that excellent naturalist St. John, in 

 his delightful " Highland Sports " ; and Dr. F. D. Godman, 

 an ornithologist of wide experience, has described the 

 same habit to me in the case of woodcocks nesting in 

 the Azores. 



It has been said that the duck known as the golden- 

 eye, which nests in the hollow trunks of trees at a distajice 

 of from twelve to twenty feet from the ground, carries 

 her young down, when they are ready to leave the nursery, 

 by pressing them against her neck with the beak. This 

 may be so, but it is certain that the wild duck, for instance 

 — which will occasionally select the boughs of a tree, even 

 as much as twenty feet from the ground, as a site for a 

 nursery — adopts a very different method. Within an hour 

 or so of hatching her offspring must be brought to the 

 ground, and this descent has more than once been wit- 

 nessed by careful observers : and in each case, by dint 

 of loud quackings and much persuasion, she induced 

 them, one by one, to launch themselves into space, and 

 in no case did any suffer the slightest injury. 



Among the Auk tribe, which breed invariably on ledges 

 of precipitous cliffs, the young, though of the precocious 

 type, have gone some way towards the nidicolous con- 

 dition. They remain on the dizzy heights of the nursery 

 till the wings have grown sufficiently large to serve at 

 least as parachutes, when they are tempted down to the 

 sea by the parents. This descent is undoubtedly a perilous 

 one. The only creditable witness thereof that I know of 

 is my friend Dr. Giinther, who is an old and experienced 

 observer. He tells me that the fledgling, displaying un- 

 mistakable signs of fear, is tempted to launch itself into 



