290 
ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE. 
only the bill remaining above the surface for respiration. 
When the swan has young, she may sink the head quite 
under water in order to allow the young to mount on it, 
and so be carried through even rapid currents. 
The same author remarks that — - 
Many birds will carefully remove the meetings of the young 
from the neighbourhood of their nests, in order not to attract 
the attention of enemies ; for while we find that birds which 
make no secret of their nesting- places are careless in such 
matters, the woodpecker and the marsh- tit in particular are at 
pains to remove even the chips which are made in excavating 
the cavities where the nests are placed, and which might lead an 
observer to the sacred spot. 
Similarly, Jesse observes: — - 
The excrement of the young of many birds who build their 
nests without any pretensions to concealment, such as the swallow, 
crow, &c., may at all times be observed about or under the nest ; 
while that of some of those birds whose nests are more indus- 
triously concealed is conveyed away in the mouths of the parent 
birds, who generally drop it at a distance of twenty or thirty 
yards from the nest. Were it not for this precaution, the ex- 
crement itself, from its accumulation, and commonly from its 
very colour, would point out the place where the young were 
concealed. When the young birds are ready to fly, or nearly so, 
the old birds do not consider it any longer necessary to remove 
the excrement. 
Sir H. Davy gives an account of a pair of eagles which 
he saw on Ben Nevis teaching their young ones to fly ; and 
every one must have observed the same thing among 
commoner species of birds. The experiments of Spalding, 
however, have shown that flying, is an instinctive faculty ; 
so that when he reared swallows from the nest and liberated 
them only after they were fully fledged, they flew well im- 
mediately on being liberated. Therefore, the 6 teaching 
to fly 9 by parent birds must be regarded as mere en- 
couragement to develop instinctive powers, which in virtue 
of this encouragement are probably developed sooner than 
would otherwise be the case. 
A few observations may here be offered on some 
