ANIMAL COMMUNICATION 
soon learn. In such matters the mother hen, no 
doubt, guides them. 
A writer in “Forest and Stream,” who has since 
published a book about his “wild friends,” pushes 
this notion that animals train their young so far that 
it becomes grotesque. Here are some of the things 
that this keen observer and exposer of “false natural 
history” reports that he has seen about his cabin in 
the woods: He has seen an old crow that hurriedly 
flew away from his cabin door on his sudden appear- 
ance, return and beat its young because they did not 
follow quickly enough. He has seen a male chewink, 
while its mate was rearing a second brood, take the 
first brood and lead them away to a bird-resort (he 
probably meant to say to a bird-nursery or kinder- 
garten); and when one of the birds wandered back 
to take one more view of the scenes of its infancy, he 
has seen the father bird pounce upon it and give it a 
“severe whipping and take it to the resort again.” 
He has seen swallows teach their young to fly by 
gathering them upon fences and telegraph wires and 
then, at intervals (and at the word of command, I 
suppose), launching out in the air with them, and 
swooping and circling about. He has seen a song 
sparrow, that came to his dooryard for fourteen 
years (he omitted to say that he had branded him 
and so knew his bird), teach his year-old boy to sing 
(the italics are mine). This hermit-inclined sparrow 
wanted to “ desert the fields for a life in the woods,” 
93 
