44 
XATURK XOIES 
at all, and leave us none the wiser. Nowadays we are waking 
up to the conclusion that many of the lower animals are endowed 
with powers foreign to, or beyond, our own experience, and that 
they have an intellect in some respects exceeding that which 
we ourselves possess. 
Lessons in flying received by young birds from their parents 
have often been seen and described, but as they may be taught 
by imitation or example only, I need not say more on this 
branch of their education. 
Birds that have not been brought up in a nest either make 
very poor attempts, or are quite unable, to build one. If a 
small bird be taken from the nest when one or two days old, 
and be reared by canaries on a piece of flannel, it will not be 
able to make a nest like that in which it was born. But if it 
be left in the nest for a week or ten days its brain will be 
sufficiently developed either to profit by the instruction given by 
the parents, or to remember the construction of its old home, 
and will build one like it. Young married couples are not such 
adepts at building as older ones, and after a season or two 
improve considerably in their work. 
A finch reared by foster parents adopts their notes and call 
instead of those usual to its kind. The uninitiated sometimes 
look on a singing sparrow as a valuable curiosity. The decep- 
tion is perpetrated by rearing the sparrow under canaries ; it 
soon learns, though in a feeble way, to imitate the notes of those 
that brought it up. The call note is learned in the first two 
or three days of a bird’s existence. 
Up to a certain point the language of birds is well known, 
and those who make it their study are able to interpret much 
of its meaning. The cave of the blackbird, swallow, or tomtit, 
is as familiar to the ornithologist as to the birds themselves. 
He recognises at once their notes of joy, pleasure, love, warning, 
alarm, distress or pain. Does their language go beyond this ? 
Is it capable of imparting ideas and instruction ? Do birds give 
advice to their young, and teach them from their own experience 
by word of mouth ? 
Some of the migratory movements of birds are beyond 
human ken, and ever will remain an unsolved mystery. There 
are, however, certain facts connected with these movements 
which point to a power of imparting or receiving knowledge and 
instruction such as we hardly expect to find in any of the lower 
animals. 
In the case of 400 European species of birds, with the single 
exception of the cuckoo, the autumn migration is begun by 
young birds from six to eight weeks old. Two months later the 
parents follow. How do these young birds set out on an 
unknown journey thousands of miles, and find their way without 
a guide ? 
To account for this there are many theories. One is the 
theory of “ magnetic sense,” by virtue of which birds travel in a 
