46 HISTORY OF THE 



to sit till they were hatched. At first she was 

 unremitting in her attention to her young, many 

 of which were ultimately reared and set at li- 

 berty, but her anxiety to regain her freedom, 

 evidently increased with their growth ; and, as 

 soon as her assistance could be dispensed with, 

 she was suffered to make her escape. This in- 

 stance is the more remarkable, as the partridge 

 has never been known to breed in captivity. 



In a conversation which I had with Mr. 

 Dalton, in the summer of 1822, on the force of 

 that impulse which leads birds to sit upon their 

 eggs with so much patience and assiduity, he 

 informed me that he had removed hen redbreasts 

 from their nests, during the period of incubation, 

 and that, upon gently replacing them, they had 

 continued to sit as if they had not been dis- 

 turbed. This experiment of Mr. Dalton's, which 

 affords a striking instance of one of the most 

 constant and powerful dictates of nature, self- 

 preservation, being counteracted by a temporary 

 excitatiop of superior energy, I have repeated 

 with the redbreast, whinchat, swallow, house- 

 martin, the marsh, cole, and great titmice, &c., 

 not only when they have been sitting, but also 

 when they have had small young ones, and al- 

 most always with success. 



