OF SELBORNE. 181 
placidly on the top of a tall tree in a village, the 
cock sings from morning to night: he affects neigh- 
bourhoods, and avoids solitude, and loves to build 
in orchards and about houses; with us he perches 
on the vane of a tall Maypole. 
The fly-catcher is, of all our summer birds, the 
during the whole time of her incubation, permitted mine, and the 
visits of some hundreds of persons, who came to see my flowers, 
which are of the choicest kind, without ever flying off the nest; 
the male, indeed, always seemed a little uneasy at our visits to 
the bag; but, extraordinary as it may appear, his uneasiness was 
trifling when | was of the party ; but if 1 was not there, his fears 
were increased tenfold, and his screams and courage were re- 
markable. I could almost imagine that, if any one had attempt- 
ed to rifle the nest, he would have attacked them. In this way 
the family throve, and grew seemingly very comfortable to ma- 
turity, till, on the 7th of June, three of the young birds left the 
nest, and the other two onthe 8th. When they were on the point 
of quitting the nest, it was curious to observe the different duties 
which seemed allotted to the parents: the female appeared to 
have the exclusive charge of procuring food for the young, while 
the male watched over the safety of the brood. After the 8th I 
saw no more of them. 
‘Upon the return of spring in 1813, being engaged in the same 
employment, it struck me that, as they were birds of passage, I 
might soon expect to see them again. I therefore hung up the 
bag exactly in the same place and in the same state as they had 
left it, and on the !4th of April I had the pleasure of seeing them 
return and put their house into repair; and in the same manner, 
and attended with the same circumstances, they brought up an- 
other family of five, and carried them off as before. I repeated 
my experiment the third year, but, whether some accident had 
befallen them, or whatever was the cause, they came no more.” 
Dr. Latham, in answer to the above communication, says, 
‘Your account of the Redstart is particularly curious, and the 
more so, as in general it is so shy a bird as not unfrequently to 
forsake the nest or eggs if much intruded upon. Iam of opinion, 
too, that many birds which migrate return to the same haunts for 
years following, of which I have given some account in my sev- 
enth volume, p. 278; and I have observed that, if a martin has 
made a nest one year in a certain angle of a window, although 
that part has been thoroughly cleansed, the same angle has been 
chosen the year following, and 1 make no doubt by the same in- 
habitants.” . 
