THE ANIMAL KINGDOM. 261 



rials employed are in proportion to the strength of the 

 architect. The eyry of the eagle is a heap of great branches 

 of trees carelessly flung together, forming a thick, rude 

 mattress, twelve to fifteen feet in circumference. This nest 

 serves the couple which build it for their whole lives, but 

 its size increases with years, because the bones of all the 

 animals brought thither by the parents and devoured by 

 the hungry family are heaped up round it in such a man- 

 ner that at a certain lapse of time the eyry of one of these 

 robbers becomes a pestilential charnel-house. 



The nests built by the goshawk display even less skill : it 

 employs only little fagots, and yet its nest is four feet in 

 circumference. 



Some of our idlers, resolved to do no work at all, become 

 nothing more nor less than thieves ; others, more coura- 

 geous, are*regular brigands. The latter attack face to face 

 the enemy they want to devour ; or throw their victim from 

 the window in order to take possession of its domicile. 



To this legion belong the voracious butcher-birds of our 

 woods, which slaughter so many little birds and spit their 

 bodies on the thorns of our thickets. 



In the ranks of the most obstinate thieves we must place 

 the sparrow. Linnaeus and Gmelin relate as an established 

 fact that before the return of the swallows a sparrow will 

 sometimes take possession of the dwelling deserted by the 

 travellers. Here it installs itself, and when the legitimate 

 proprietors return, threatens to cut them open with its pow- 

 erful bill. The plundered swallows call their companions 

 in the vicinity to their help. Then begins the siege of the 

 place ; some retain the enemy a prisoner, whilst others oc- 



