2 . 
time so arranged that it would open instead of close the en- 
trances to the nests; Instantly there was a volley , no other 
word will express it, of birds from both sides of the box and 
strange to say, the direction of flight, as far as I and two 
men who had been helping me, could see, was, without exception 
towards ’.Vest Chester. I watched for a while but no more ap- 
peared, but about daybreak I counted four more as they took 
flight, these left singly but each one took the same course 
as all the others. I have often thought over this and believe 
T 
if systematic experiments, based on this observation, were 
made with Martins and other birds something further could be 
learned in regard to the sense of direction . If it was veri- 
fied, it appears to me, that nothing but a special sense, and 
a very keen one at that, could explain it. Mr.Hoopes reported 
the next day that what he believed to be the old birds were 
flying about the pole from which the box had been taken and 
acting in a "distracted manner". No old birds were seen in 
the Gardens all day and at 7.30 that evening we lowered the 
box and found that we had nine clutches of young ones, 32 al- 
together. There was but one thing to do, feed the young by 
hand. At first it took two men two hours to feed them, for a 
while they were fed three times and afterwards twice each day. 
They were in stages of developement from less than half grown 
