A Cordial Recognition

Abstract

I HAVE just witnessed a curious case of bird instinct which seems worth recording. A gardener living at Zukaleriá, three miles from here, caught in his garden a young but fully fledged sparrow, which he brought to the house of a friend with whom we are staying in Canea, leaving home early in the morning. He presented the bird to one of the children in the house, and it was put in a cage and hung at the window, where it seemed likely to be contented, losing its fright after a few hours. Late in the afternoon an old bird was noticed fluttering about the cage apparently trying to get at the little one, and the young, bird on its appearance became frantic to get out to the old one. It was evidently the mother of the young one, as the recognition was too cordial to have been owing to the interest of a strange bird; and when my daughter opened the cage, as she did after a little, they both flew off rapidly in the direction of Zukaleriá. It is impossible that the old bird should have followed the gardener, as we should have seen it earlier in the day.