FROM THE CRADLE TO THE GRAVE. 89 
Warbler which bred for many years running regularly in our 
garden; it is so easily distinguishable by its song that we 
cannot mistake it for any other. Olaffen remembers a 
pair of Eider Ducks using the same nesting-place for 
twenty consecutive years.* Naumann mentions a Cuckoo, 
which he recognised from the peculiarity of its note, as 
frequenting the same locality every spring for thirty- 
two years. All these observations justify the supposi¬ 
tion that birds live to a comparatively old age. Canary 
birds often live twelve, and even fifteen, years. Some of 
the larger cage birds, and even the Nightingale, will live 
still longer in confinement. 
The death of most birds is as poetical as their life: 
they rarely die from sickness, owing to unlimited freedom, 
air and exercise. Birds are much troubled with intes¬ 
tinal worms and exterior parasites; in their wild state, 
however, they are almost always healthy. When wounded 
their wounds heal exceptionably well and rapidly, and, in 
most cases, without impeding a single movement, 
though occasionally they must be somewhat restricted. 
We have often killed birds whose wing-bones had 
evidently, at some previous time, been shattered by a 
gun-shot, the broken parts having sometimes reunited 
side by side instead of in their proper places; the 
bird, nevertheless, flew with rapidity and strength. 
Sickness, on the contrary, generally ends fatally. At 
times even wild birds are seized by it. Numerous 
corpses of the same species are often found in their 
common roosting-places: this would lead to the sup- 
* Though this statement is undoubtedly given in good faith, still there is room 
to suppose the observer may have been mistaken as to the identity of the birds; it 
is more likely that the site was too favourable a one to have been left unoccupied.— 
TV. J, 
N 
