The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-10-11

On Saturday the young swallows were old enough to leave the rhst. The par ent birds had been showing a lot of ex- citement, and the keepers knew what was the matter. The birds were afraid to force the young ones from the nest lest they should be unable to use their wings and fall to the floor of the cage. Yesterday morning Keeper Spicer was standing in front of the bears cage while the male and female swallow were flying excitedly in and out of the cave. They had made several such trips when Spicer saw a small object drop from the top of the cave to the floor.
 Dr. Nansen was near the water tank and was watching the movements of the swallows. He saw the little body drop from above, too, and scrambled to his feet and started toward where it lay. Keeper Spicer says that both the parent swallows swooped down to the mouth of the cave, and that one of them, prob- ably the male, grabbed the young bird (for it was one of the youngsters which had fallen) by the wing. The old bird started to drag the young one across the floor of the cage
 Dr. Nansen stopped and watched them. Half way to the side where the bars arc the male parent swallow let go, and the young one Tapped his way across the as- phalt and was soon outside. Once there he made a feeble effort to fly, then an other and finally disappeared with his parents. They soon returned and re- peated the performance. The keeper says he thinks the old swallows pushed the young ones one by one from the nest and got out of harms way. He docs not think, however, that Dr. Nansen would have hurt the young birds had they re- mained on the floor of the cage. Sunday the canine pal of Dr. Nansen was with Keeper Snyder, and also watched the launching of the nestlings, but made no attempt to interfere.
 There is a sparrows' nest among the rafters of the small mammal house at the Bronx Park zoo, also several under the caves of the buffalo house and the deer and elk houses. Several of these spar rows have already brought forth broods of young and some of them are now in- cubating their second set of eggs the keepers say. Along the cornices of the new elephant house there are a number of sparrows nests, but these birds are quite safe, because the elephant house will not be occupied before late in the fall There was one pair of sparrows which built up above the lions cage in the Bronx Park zoo and successfully launched a brood of young
 The only tragedy the keepers can re- member was last year, when a pair of foolish sparrow built in the rafters just above the tiger cage and two of the young fell from the nest and were de- voured by one of the tigers.
 In the Central Park zoo there are a number of sparrows' nests in the rafters just above the meat-eating animal cages. Keeper Snyder said yesterday that a pair of phebes built and reared a nest of young in the top of the monkey house this season. The birds, he said, did not seem to mind at all the chattering of the smians The nest was well out of the reach of the monkeys, but should one of the young have fallen from the nest there would not have been much chance of his getting away alive.
 The sparrows which build in the ele- phant house and several of the other cages nearby feed upon stray grains of wheat and corn which they get at feed ing time in the pelican house and at the lake shore, where the wild fowl are fed.
 'Why they all do not choose the trees and outbuldings at the zoo is a mystery to me-" said Keeper Snyder yesterday The only thing that I can think of as a reason is that the birds love company while they are nesting. The sparrows are gregariou little chaps Perhaps it is lonely for the female sitting all alone on the eggs, when the nests are in the trees or isolated outbuildIngs, so they choose the caves and rafters of the animal