Zoological recreations / [William John Broderip].

  • William Broderip
Date:
1848
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Zoological recreations / [William John Broderip]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    50/436 page 34
    Here again we have strong evidence of the memory of birds. Dr. Jenner proved by the most irrefragable evidence, that the same pair of birds returned to the same nest year after year. Theirs is a chequered life. When the sun shines bright, and all the insect-world is stirring, the swifts are sporting in the brilliant summer-light, and sailing in the air in all the luxury of enjoyment; but let a windy, stormy time come—where are they then ? Laid up in solitude and darkness, hour after hour, in their gloomy nesting-places, to climb into which their short feet are admirably adapted, for all four of the toes are turned forward to aid them in creeping into their narrow dormitories. We cannot quit this family without adverting to a charge made against some of the species—abandonment of their young. This has been proved against the swallow and the martin; and the swift has been suspected, whether justly or not we shall presently inquire. There is no doubt that late broods of swallov/s have been left by their vagrant parents to perish in their nests by the most dis- tressing of deaths; and as little that the martins are guilty of the same desertion. Dr. Jenner has recorded the fact against a pair of martins which hatched four broods in one year : the last hapless brood came into existence early in October, and about the middle of the month the old birds went off, and left their nestlings, then about half-hedged, to die. They returned to the nest on the 17th of May, in the next year, and threw the skeletons out. Mr. Blackwall* has put the frequent occurrence of this unparental act beyond doubt. Among many other evidences, he has seen a pair of house-martins, after taking possession of an old nest, draw out the dried bodies of three nearly full-fledged nesthngs, before they established themselves therein. About the same time, and near the same place, another pair endeavoured to get rid of the dead bodies of the victims ; their efforts to dislodge the carcasses were ineffectual, and they then closed up the aperture of the nest with clay, thus converting it into a sepulchre. At first Mr. Black- wall was disposed to attribute the untimely death of the nestlings to the accidental destruction of one or both parents; but the accumulated evidence forbade any other conclusion than that these cases of protracted suffering and ultimate dissolution, were the result of voluntary abandonment. May not the praises bestowed of old upon the swallow for its piety in burying its dead, have taken their origin from some such fact as one of those recorded by Mr. Blackwall But how are we to account for this perversion of the parental * Researches in Zoology.
    digitised image 1
    digitised image 2
    digitised image 3