would receive seventy-two feeds in the day; the whole amounting to five hundred and seventy-six. From examination of the food, which by accident now and then dropped into the nest, I judged from those weighed that each feed was a quarter of a grain upon an average; so that each young one was supplied with eighteen grains weight in a day; and as the young ones weighed about seventy-seven grains at the time they began to perch, they consumed nearly their weight of food in four days' time at that time. This extraordinary consumption seems absolutely requisite in animals of such rapid growth. The old birds of this species weigh from eighty to ninety grains. I could always perceive by the animation of the young brood when the old one was coming; probably some low note indicated her approach, and in an instant every mouth was open to receive the insect morsel. But there appeared no regularity in the supply given by the parent bird: sometimes the same was fed two or three times successively; and I generally observed that the strongest got most, being able to reach farthest, the old one delivering it to the mouth nearest to her*"

It would be easy for us to extend this chapter to a much greater length by similar anecdotes; but we shall only add one more respecting one of the humming birds (Trochilida), mentioned by M. Labat, premising that we have no means of ascertaining the particular species meant. It being found extremely difficult, if not impossible, to breed the young humming birds, endeavours have been made to rear them by taking advantage of the natural affection of the parents for their offspring. Our author records an instance of such an experiment: "I showed," says he, "a nest of humming-birds to Father Montdidier, which was placed on a shed near the house.

* Ornith. Dict, Introd. 1st ed. and p. 204, 2nd ed.

He

carried it off with the young, when they were about fifteen or twenty days old, and put them in a cage at his room window, where the cock and hen continued to feed them, and grew so tame, that they scarcely ever left the room; and though not shut in the cage, nor subjected to any restraint, they used to eat and sleep with their brood. I have often seen all the four sitting upon Father Montdidier's finger, singing as if they had been perched upon a branch. He fed them with a very fine and almost limpid paste, made with biscuit, Spanish wine, and sugar. They dipped their tongue in it, and when their appetite was satisfied they fluttered and chanted. I never saw any thing more lovely than these four pretty little birds, which flew about the house, and attended the call of their foster-father. He preserved them in this way five or six months, and we hoped soon to see them breed, when Father Montdidier, having forgotten one night to tie the cage in which they were roosted by a cord, that hung from the ceiling, to keep them from the rats, had the vexation in the morning to find that they had disappeared; they had been devoured*."

* Nouveau Voyage aux Iles de l'Amerique, iv. 14.

CHAPTER XII.

TRAINING OF YOUNG BIRDS BY THEIR PARENTS.

By far the greater number of the actions of animals appear to be performed without previous instruction, in a manner which being inexplicable in the present state of knowledge, is designated by the terms instinct and instinctive, meaning that the motives to any particular movement or action, as well as the mode of execution, originate in the animal spontaneously, without the series of reasoning, or thinking and determining, which we employ in similar cases. Thus a frog is said to swim instinctively in water; that is, it requires no training, no instruction in the art of swimming, no more than we do in the process of breathing; and the same may be said with regard to the swimming of most other animals, even those least accustomed to water, few being unable to swim except man, who requires training and instruction for that purpose. It is not our design to enter here upon the difficult subject of instinct, farther than to point out a few of the acquired actions of birds, originating either in the express instruction or imitation of their parents.

With respect to the eagle, which is the most celebrated from the remotest antiquity for instructing its young, we are told by Moses, that she "stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, and taketh them and beareth them on her wings Aristotle adds, that the young

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are not permitted to leave the nest prematurely, and

Deuteronomy, xxxii. 11,

if they make the attempt, their parents beat them with their wings and tear them with their claws *. Be this as it may, we are assured that eagles will feed their young for a considerable period, if the latter are disabled from flying by clipping their wings; and it is recorded that a countryman once obtained a comfortable subsistence for his family out of an eagle's nest, by clipping the wings of the eaglets and tying them so as to increase their cries, a plan which was found to stimulate the exertions of the old birds in bringing prey to the nest. It was of course necessary for him to make his visits when the old birds were absent, otherwise he might have been made to pay dearly for his plunder. After instructing their young in flying and hunting, the parent eagles, like other birds of prey, drive them from their territory, though not, we believe, as Aristotle says, from the nest. Bonnet says, "The eagle instructs its young in flying, but does not, like the stork, prolong their education, for it mercilessly drives them away before they are thoroughly taught and forces them to provide for their own wants. All the tyrants of the air act in the same manner, yet though this seems cruel and shocking, when we consider their close relationship, it takes a different aspect when we consider the kind of life led by those voracious birds. Destined to subsist by rapine and carnage, they would soon produce a famine amongst their race did many of them dwell in the same district. For which reason, they hasten to drive away their young at a certain age from their boundaries, and then if a scarcity of provision occur, the male and female put one another to death t." The poet Thomson, without going quite so far as this, gives a very good account of the circumstance.

*Hist. Anim, ix. 32.
† Contempl. de la Nature, vi. note 5.

"High from the summit of a craggy cliff
Hung o'er the deep, such as amazing frowns
On utmost Kilda's shore, whose lonely race
Resign the setting sun to Indian worlds,
The royal eagle draws his vigorous young,
Strong-pounced, and ardent with paternal fire.
Now fit to raise a kingdom of their own,

He drives them from his fort, the tow'ring seat
For ages, of his empire; which in peace,
Unstain'd he holds, while many a league to sea
He wings his course and preys in distant isles."

Another bird celebrated for instructing its young is the stork. When the wings of the young storks begin to grow, they are said to try their strength in fluttering about the nest, though it often happens that, in this exercise, some of them fall and are unable to regain their place. When they first venture to commit themselves to the air, the mother leads them in small circumvolutions about the nest, whither she conducts them back, and about the end of August, the young ones having acquired strength, unite with the old ones for the purpose of migration *. "When

the young storks," says Bonnet, as if speaking from observation, "begin to try their wings, the mother fails not to watch over and conduct them. She exercises them by little and little in short flights around the nest, to which she soon conducts them again. She continues her attention for a long time, and does not abandon them till their education is completed t."

We are disposed, however, to look upon much that has been written respecting parent birds instructing their young as merely fanciful, and whether we are right in this may be readily verified by observing and comparing facts of daily occurrence. In the case of

* Buffon, Oiseaux, vol. viii.

+ Contempl. de la Nature, pl. xi, c. vi. note 5.