“Sometimes when the nests are destroyed, the birds, instead of attempting to repair the damage, forsake the neighbourhood, as if wholly disheartened. Nothing can be more distressing to them than to lose their young. In the storm of which I have just spoken, another martin’s nest was washed down with unfledged young in it. These were placed on some cotton wool in a basket, covered with a sheet of brown paper, in an open window, facing the wall. During that day and the following, the parents took no notice of them, and their kind human protector fed them with house-flies. That evening he tried an experiment. He gently placed the young ones in a nest of that same window, where were other young. It was then about eight o’clock in the evening; the rain was falling heavily, and no sound was heard save the _cheep, cheep_, of the young birds, and the dashing of the storm against the window-glass. A minute elapsed, when forth rushed the parents shrieking their alarm notes, and, again and again wheeled up to the nest, until at last they drifted away in the storm. He watched them till they disappeared about half-past-nine. During all this time they only twice summoned courage to look into the nest. Next morning I was rejoiced to see them attending assiduously to the young ones.” [Sidenote: _The Feeding of the Young._] And now, turning again to our group of four nests on the walls, supposing it be the month of July, every one of them with its fledgeling brood sitting with gaping mouths, ever ready for food, you may, perhaps, like to know how many meals are carried up to them in the course of the day. If, then, the parents began to feed them at about five in the morning, and left a little before eight at night, they would feed them, at the lowest calculation, about a thousand times. With all this feeding and care-taking, the young ones, as the summer goes on, are full-fledged, and have grown so plump and large that the nest is quite too small for them; therefore, they must turn out into the world, and begin life for themselves. It is now a fine, brisk, August morning, and at about eight o’clock, you can see, if you look up at the nests, how the old birds come dashing up to them quite in an excited way, making short curves in the air, and repeating a note which says, as plain as a bird can speak, This is the day You must away! What are wings made for, if not to fly? Cheep, cheep, Now for a leap!— Father and mother and neighbours are by! This flying away from the nest is a great event in swallow-life, as you may well believe. Let us therefore now direct our attention to one nest in particular, in which are only two young ones—a very small family; but what happens here is occurring all round us. One of these little ones balances itself at the entrance, looking timidly into the void, and, having considered the risk for awhile, allows its fellow to take its place.