[aeengine-devel] Rows of dead robins laid out on poulterers' stalls in the markets

[Dalby H. <agr...@cl...>]

He early teaching given by the mother-swallow to her brood was an angler
who told me how, one evening when he was fishing in some ponds at no
great distance from London, a number of baby swallows alighted on his
rod. He kept as still as possible, fearful of alarming his interesting
visitors, but he must at last have moved, for, with one accord, they all
fell off his rod together, skimmed over the surface of the water and
disappeared in the direction from which they had come a few moments
earlier. Swifts fly to an immense height these July evenings, mounting
to such an altitude as eventually to disappear out of sight altogether.
This curious habit, which is but imperfectly understood, has led to the
belief that, instead of roosting in the nest or among the reeds like the
swallows, the males, at any rate, spend the night flying about under the
stars. This fantastic notion is not, however, likely to commend itself
to those who pause to reflect on the incessant activity displayed by
these birds the livelong day. So rarely indeed do