. Birds & nature. Birds; Natural history. A FOSTER BROTHER^S YOUNG Oriole was rescued from the water where it had evidently just fallen from the nest. When taken home it proved a ready pet and was given full freedom of the place. Some weeks later a nestling from another brood was placed in the same cage with the other. The new- comer had not yet learned to feed him- self, and like a baby as it was, cried incessantly for food. The first captive though but a fledgling himself, pro- ceeded to feed the orphan with all the tender solicitude of a parent. " It was irresistably cun
. Birds & nature. Birds; Natural history. A FOSTER BROTHER^S YOUNG Oriole was rescued from the water where it had evidently just fallen from the nest. When taken home it proved a ready pet and was given full freedom of the place. Some weeks later a nestling from another brood was placed in the same cage with the other. The new- comer had not yet learned to feed him- self, and like a baby as it was, cried incessantly for food. The first captive though but a fledgling himself, pro- ceeded to feed the orphan with all the tender solicitude of a parent. " It was irresistably cunning and heartsome, too," says the narrator, W. L. Dawson, in the Bidlftin^ '' to see the bird select with thoughtful kindness, a morsel of food and hop over toward the clamoring stranger and drop it in his mouth, looking at it afterward with an air as much as to say, ' there, baby, how did you like that ? ' This trait was not shown by a chance exhi- bition, but became a regular habit, and was still followed when the older bird had attained to fly catching. It upset all ones notions about instinct and made one think of a Golden Rule for ; A GOOSE THAT TAKES A HEN SAILING. The following remarkable instance of the communication of ideas among the lower animals is narrated by the Rev. C. Otway : " At the flour mills of Tubberakeena, near Clonmel, while in the possession of the late Mr. Newbold, there was a Goose, which by some accident was left solitary, without mate or offspring, gander or goslings. Now it happened, as is common, that the miller's wife had set a number of Duck eggs under a hen, which in due time were incu- bated ; and of course the ducklings, as soon as they came forth, ran with nat- ural instinct to the water, and the hen was in a sad pucker—her maternity urging her to follow the brood, and her instinct disposing her to keep on dry land. " In the meanwhile, up sailed the Goose, and with a noisy gabble, which certainly (being interpret
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Keywords: ., boo, bookcentury1800, booksubjectbirds, booksubjectnaturalhistory
