instinct. It has been found that newly hatched
chickens, when left to themselves, do not know the difference between
edible and non-edible insects, but that they soon learn. In such
matters the mother hen, no doubt, guides them.

A writer in "Forest and Stream," who has since published a book about
his "wild friends," pushes this notion that animals train their young
so far that it becomes grotesque. Here are some of the things that
this keen observer and exposer of "false natural history" reports that
he has seen about his cabin in the woods: He has seen an old crow that
hurriedly flew away from his cabin door on his sudden appearance,
return and beat its young because they did not follow quickly enough.
He has seen a male chewink, while its mate was rearing a second brood,
take the first brood and lead them away to a bird-resort (he probably
meant to say to a bird-nursery or kindergarten); and when one of the
birds wandered back to take one more view of the scenes of its
infancy, he has seen the father bird pounce upon it and give it a
"severe whipping and take it to the resort again."

He has seen swallows teach their young to fly by gathering them upon
fences and telegraph wires and then, at intervals (and at the word of
command, I suppose), launching out in the air with them, and swooping
and circling about. He has seen a song sparrow, that came to his
dooryard for fourteen years (he omitted to say that he had branded him
and so knew his bird), teach _his year-old boy to sing_ (the italics
are mine). This hermit-inclined sparrow wanted to "desert the fields
for a life in the woods," but his "wife would not consent." Many a
featherless biped has had the same experience with his society-spoiled
wife. The puzzle is, how did this masterly observer know that this
state of affairs existed between this couple? Did the wife tell him,
or the husband? "Hermit" often takes his visitors to a wood thrushes'
singing-school, where, "as the birds forget their lesson, they drop
out one by one."

He has seen an old rooster teaching a young rooster to crow! At first
the old rooster crows mostly in the morning, but later in the season
he crows throughout the day, at short intervals, to show the young
"the proper thing." "Young birds removed out of hearing will not learn
to crow." He hears the old grouse teaching the young to drum in the
fall, though he neglects to tell us that he has seen the young in
attendance upon these lessons.