When the young sparrows were hatched, and feeding began, the wren suddenly became friendly. He hunted up small green worms, probably such as are good for wrenlings, and offered them to the young sparrows.
Nestlings are never known to refuse anything to eat, and wren food seemed to suit the sparrows, for they soon outgrew the nursery.
All summer this queer thing went on. The sparrows reared three or four broods, and the wren did his full share of the work,—and not only of feeding the young, but of repairing and rebuilding the nest for each fresh brood.
XX
HIS INTELLIGENCE
Before people knew very much about the ways of birds, it was thought that they did not have to be taught anything, but that they knew everything they needed to know, as soon as they were born. That is, they were said to act from instinct alone, and not at all from reason, as we do.
Another notion that people had was that birds of a kind were just alike; that they looked exactly like each other, all acted in the same way, and all sang the same song.
But since we have begun to study birds more closely, we find these things are not true. We find that birds learn things by being taught, as we do. Also, they find out how to do things themselves, and they are not all alike, as so many machines.