MIGRANT PERILS.
The account from Vienna of the strange experience of migrant swallows contains what is probably an error in natural history. The facts are that many thousands of swallows were so chilled by the unwonted cold that they could not proceed ; and in the sequel the Society for the Protection of Animals (which is the best on the Continent) transported some 4.0,000 to 50,000 in special aeroplanes over the Alps. It is a marvellous feat, for its manipulation; as well as its humanity, because swallows, like most othei small birds, cannot endure a long period of starvation ; and they are much more difficult to feed artificially than perhaps any other species in the list. Now it is said that most of the birds which the kind Austrians picked up and carried to their society for artificial migration were young birds of the " second brood." Some were much more likely of the third. A few of our own swallows had four broods this summer ; and the second broods were hatched in plenty of time to give the young full opportunity to grow as strong
as their parents. * * * *
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