EVERY-DAY LIFE. 
267 
regularly put to bed/’ if we may use the term, by their 
parents. “I shall never forget a Swallow,” says Sigis- 
mund, “who, when the nest was too small for her 
growing family, used to roost in an elder-tree before my 
window. Every evening she mustered her children, 
pointed out their place for the night, and gave them all 
a good lecture before going to sleep; she appeared to 
count them over and over again, and did not close an eye 
until the little folk were fast asleep. In the morning a 
joyous glance from their mother awaited them ; she was 
always the first to awake and inspect her family; one little 
head after another popped out from under the wing, 
opening its pretty black eyes; some, tweaked suddenly 
by their brothers and sisters, could not waken quite 
quick enough, the eyelid dropped again and again over 
the heavy eye, making the little creature remind one of a 
drowsy child struggling against sleep.” 
All birds require but little rest, and sleep lightly; yet 
to some a certain continuous movement is necessary. 
Those birds which roost in trees and on the ground 
need have no dread of falling; those, however, sleeping 
on the water have to fear drifting ashore. They must, 
then, keep themselves stationary by an unconscious and 
regular movement of the feet, so as not to be driven 
from the spot by wind and wave. Birds roosting on 
trees always sleep with their tarsi much bent ; some 
stand on one leg, like many running and aquatic birds, 
the other being drawn up and hidden among the feathers 
of the breast, and the head deeply buried in those of the 
back. The Goatsuckers only sleep with their bodies 
along, instead of across, large limbs of trees, and being 
diurnal sleepers this habit tends greatly to their safety. 
Birds that breed in holes mostly roost in hollow trees. I 
