YOUNG WILD BIRDS.
BIRDS are so interesting to the outdoor naturalist in the spring, when they are singing, pairing, and building -their nests, and again in autumn when on their migration, that in the midsummer months they are often less carefully observed. At the present time most of the broods of the year are hatched and fledged, and the young of the species -which nest in the British Islands are learning to get their own living among the immense supplies of food which the summer -season brings. The habits of young wild birds at this season of education and growth are not less interesting than when they are mature. But the thickness of the foliage on the trees, the high vegetation of the cultivated land, and the natural tendency of young birds to keep quiet and still, make the study of them a matter of some difficulty. In the hedgerows and by the woodsides unfamiliar notes and calls of birds are constantly heard,—the notes of young birds, which cannot be identified owing to the thickness of the foliage, and though in the large woods the cry of the young sparrow-hawks and the (light of the pigeons and woodpeckers betray their presence, it Is almost impossible to watch them, or to ascertain their way of procuring food. Probably most of the larger species are fed by the old birds long after they leave the nest. Of game birds, young partridges are the most self-reliant, and young pheasants the least able to take care of themselves. The present writer has never seen young quails ; but as those coveys which are hatched in England often number as many birds as the quail usually lays eggs, it may be presumed that these, the smallest of all the game birds, are not less active and precocious than the young of the partridge. The latter are -almost as active upon land as young wild ducks are upon the grater. They run swiftly and without hesitation, even among thick vegetation, when they are no bigger than a wren, and follow or precede their mother through mowing-grass, hedge- rows, or the sides of furze-breaks and copses, seeking and .catching insects all the while, and neither losing themselves nor betraying their whereabouts by unnecessary noise or excursions. Young pheasants, on the other hand, are con- stantly getting separated from the brood and lost, when they put up their heads and squeak dolefully, attracting the atten- tion of enemies, furred or feathered, to their helpless con- dition. If chased, a small pheasant pokes its head under cover, and waits to be caught. Under similar circumstances the young chicks of another ground-feeding bird, the peewit, would " squat" the moment an enemy appeared in sight, and remain as still as a stone until he was gone. This suggests the very interesting question why a young partridge or pheasant " in the down "—that is, before it has grown any true feathers—does not "squat," though that is the favourite means for concealment used by these birds when grown ap, while the young peewit, which when grown up never uses this manoeuvre, always has recourse to it. In the adult partridge, and even more in the adult pheasant, "squatting" seems as instinctive as in the tiny plover. They seem to sink to the ground almost automatically when they feel alarm, and their trust in the protection of immobility and assimilation of outline to the contour of the ground is almost limitless. The writer has seen a hen-pheasant crouched under a single 'marigold root, and waiting there until a setter's nose touched its feathers, and he has caught partridges with the band that have " squatted" in the snow until they sank beneath the surface. Every sportsman will recall striking instances of the very strong and, as it would appear, innate impulse of both species of bird to do this. Yet there is little doubt that in the case of partridges and pheasants it is in part an acquired habit—taught by the old birds to the young—while in the case of the plover it is instinctive in the young, and only abandoned when no longer needed, because the bird then trusts to its wings.
Young partridges, as long as they can only run, and the wing-feathers are not grown, never " squat." If alarmed, they either run under cover, or more commonly slip under- neath the mother-bird, like young chickens. Young pheasants, with less quickness and success, do the same. Bat when the wing-feathers begin to grow, which they do when the chick is scarcely larger than a sparrow, the birds learn to " squat," and habitually have recourse to the practice. After a very wet summer, which destroyed nearly all the first coveys of partridges, the present writer used to find broods of tiny "speakers" out feeding on the stubbles in the evenings in September. The setter would point them, and then draw up to where the two old birds and the survivors of the second brood were crouched among the stubble. The two or three chicks, the size of sparrows, could then be seen "squatted" in orthodox fashion by the side of the old birds. When disturbed they always rose and flew a few yards. A brood of ten partridges brought up by a bantam hen and allowed to go free on the lawn and among the shrubberies of a country house never learnt to " squat " at all,—probably because there was no old partridge to teach them. On the other hand they were bold, confident birds, ignorant of danger, and with no inducement to hide, so that their behaviour is not conclusive evidence that they needed in- struction. The " smartness" of all young water-fowl is remarkable. A correspondent recently described in the Spectator how a young dab-chick, not much bigger than a water-beetle, instantly dived when caught in a tumbler. Its behaviour was typical of all the young of diving birds.
In the Irish Sea rock-fowl of all kinds are very numerous, and vessels going north pass large numbers of guillemots and razor-bills swimming far out at sea. In August these are accompanied by their young, often less than half-grown, and still covered with down. The little guillemots are "launched" very soon after they are hatched, and unless the old birds carry them up to the rocks on which they roost, in the same way as they are said to carry them down, they must spend their nights, as well as their days, upon the sea. Young wild ducks are so light and active that they seem able to run on the surface of the water. It is hardly credible that they can do so, as a " water-boatman " does, without breaking the " surface film," but they certainly can make a dash for a short distance with their feet on the water, and the whole of their body out of it. In catching insects on the water they rival the dexterity of a young partridge on an ant-bill. There is very little doubt also that, like young fish, they live largely on the microscopic entonzostraca, which come as a kind of manna in the wilderness to all aquatic creatures. Mr. St. John once found a whole brood imprisoned in a water-hole in the heather. The sides were steep, and it was evident that they had fallen in and had been unable to get out. There were signs that they had been there for some time, but they were all in good condition, and it was surmised that they had lived on insects which had fallen into the water from the surrounding heather. Probably they had largely supplemented this by devouring the water-fleas and other entomostraca bred in the pool itself. Young coots, water-hens, water-rails, grebes, and swans are almost as clever as the young wild ducks when in their downy youth. Later, when nearly fledged, and even when able to fly, they are much less adroit. They lose their cleverness together with the beauty of babyhood, and pass through a stupid half-fledged period as "flappers." Even their nerves go amiss. In parts of Iceland the line of flight of the young swans is marked by the natives, who assemble and when the flocks pass over yell, shout, and scream at the birds. The young swans become perfectly muddled, and many of them simply close their wings, leave off flying, and drop to the ground, when they are caught.
The broods of swallows and fly-catchers remain in evidence on our roofs and in the gardens until they leave the country. The former are attentively fed by the old birds long after they can fly, though the young fly-catchers soon become as expert in the chase as their parents. Young redstarts in places such as Epping Forest, where the species is numerous, nesting in the thousands of pol- lard hornbeams in the groves, also remain near the nest, and the broods of water-wagtails haunt the lawns. But what becomes of the young of all the migratory warbler-, the chill-chaff, black-caps, willow-warblers, wood-warblers, garden-warblers, white-throats, and their relations which nest in every meadow and copse, and round every country house? The population of this class of bird must be multiplied by five or six—in the case of those having two broods, by ten—and yet after the nesting season there is no apparent increase in their numbers, as in those of the sparrows, robins, or tits. They are not even seen together, like the young wrens earlier in the season, but disperse and disappear long before they migrate. A few re- main in the fruit-gardens eating late currants. But the great body of the young of these insect•eating birds go to the fields
of standing corn and barley, and remain there, feeding on the myriads of insects which the jungle of straw harbours, until the grain is cut. The species which stays latest in the corn is the sedge-warbler. The young birds are found by shooters in all the patches of late barley until the middle of September.
The demeanour of the young of wild birds in the presence of man varies greatly. Some are confident, others always mistrustful and shy. Generally speaking, they exhibit leas caution than the old birds, though the fact that they do so is not clear evidence that they only learn caution by experience. Acquired habits or tendencies are so far hereditary in man that they are more often developed after than during child- hood, and there is no reason why this should not be true of birds. These, however, do exhibit one striking instance of an acquired habit being hereditary even in the very young bird. Young robins inherit the confidence which their parents have in man, and though they, sooner than any other species, become independent of, and even hostile to, their parents, they show the same tendency to friendliness at a very early period.
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