Birds have been found caught in the lining of a nest, so that they were held there and could not go for food. They had been there for weeks, and would have starved to death if they had not been fed. Yet they were so well taken care of by other birds that they were strong and able to fly.
In one case, where the nest was in a tree trunk, the hole in the trunk had grown up, so that when big enough to fly, they could not get out, and they had been there for months. Yet when a man cut open the trunk and let them out, they were well and lively, proving that they had been fed by friends outside all that time.
I could tell you many true stories of the kind care of birds for each other, and for baby birds who had lost their parents, or been stolen away from them.
A gentleman in Massachusetts told me that when he was a boy he saw a small flock of chewinks who came about a house where food was put out for birds. They came every day, and he soon saw that one was bigger than the rest, and that he never tried to pick up anything for himself, but all the others fed him.
One day he was cruel enough to throw a stone at the bird who was so well taken care of, and when he took up his victim, he found that the upper and lower parts of his bill were crossed, so that he could not pick up anything from the ground, where chewinks find their food. He had been born thus deformed, and if he had not been fed every day by his friends he must have starved to death. Yet so well had he been cared for that he was better grown than any of the others.
XIX
HIS AFFECTIONS
I am sure I need not say that father and mother birds love their little ones.