26 The Minstrels of the Summer. 



will hear hundreds of little birds recording the songs they, are 

 just learning of their parents, and the parents always sing till 

 their young have learnt their lesson properly ; and hence, 

 though the nightingale usually sings less vehemently after he 

 has found a mate, he does sing till August if the first brood 

 has met with an accident, and the parents hatch out a second. 

 White records the singing of the nightingale on the 1st of 

 May, and Markwick on the 4th of July, and the latter adds, 

 "last seen, the 29th of August." Take a young bird from 

 the nest before it is old enough to have learnt of its parents, 

 and it will learn any song or no song, just as circumstances in- 

 fluence it. I have a canary that was brought up to the nightin- 

 gale's song, and sings it to perfection. He has since learnt the 

 chirp of the sparrow, the warble of the wren, the harsh twirk- 

 ing of the blue-headed parakeet, and the graceful melody of a 

 creaking wheelbarrow. Hen birds of almost any kind will 

 sing nearly as well as cocks if well trained from the nest, and 

 if singing is so much a matter of tuition, why should not flying- 

 be. Anywhere just now you may see the sparrows teaching 

 their young to fly, and a pretty sight it is ; the prettiest of the 

 season. If they are taught to fly from a tree to the ground, 

 and from the ground to a paling, why not over seas and conti- 

 nents in such cases as render long flight necessary ? We are 

 met here with the word ' ' Instinct," which gives no account 

 of motives, of caution in avoiding accidents, or of the almost 

 supernatural powers of sight and wing which migratory birds 

 possess. The swift will fly a mile in a minute, and in the 

 course of a season traverses eight times the circumference of 

 the globe in search of flies within the range of less than an acre 

 of territory. 



I remember a match of pigeon-flying between London and 

 Amsterdam, in which the winning bird flew at the rate of two 

 miles every three minutes, according to the timing of the com- 

 petitors, who started and received the bird at the two extremes 

 of its journey. Let those who cling to the unsatisfactory solu- 

 tion of instinct keep carriers three years, and fly them on 

 scientific principles, and they will, at the end of that period, 

 toss Dr. Derham's idea of " untaught, unthinking creatures" 

 to its proper limbo among obsolete notions. There are three 

 things noticeable in the migration of birds ; first, that change 

 of residence is desirable ; secondly, that they know where 

 to go, and thirdly, they know how to go by the safest and the 

 shortest route. Egypt houses a vast number of our summer 

 visitants. Why we cannot say, except that doubtless the food 

 and climate suit them. Africa, indeed, is the winter home 

 of the greater number of the British warblers ; and why they 

 come here we cannot say, except that, as before, the food 



