25 AUGUST 1894, Page 15

A BIRD STORY.

[To THE EDITOR or THE " SPECTATOR.") think the following may interest your readers. While staying with my father in Worcestershire this week, he told us the following story at the breakfast-table. His attention was attracted by sounds outside his dressing-room window, as of a bird in distress, and on looking out he saw a young house.martin clinging to the outside of its nest (which was built in an angle of the window), evidently very frightened, and uttering shrill cries. The parent bird, still in the nest, was firmly holding the outstretched wing of the young one with her beak ; then coming out of the nest herself, they both flew away in a downward direction, the little bird being still supported in the same way by the parent. I should be glad if any one could tell me if this is the usual way in which house martins teach their young to am, Sir, &c.,

B. H. BLAKE.