MERULA VISCIVORA. 247 



observe that domed nest, about three feet up from the ground, 

 half hidden amongst the ivy leaves, and the rest so nicely 

 matched with green moss as almost to defy detection. It was a 

 kitty wren's, with eight deep-sitten eggs. On passing along one of 

 the walks I observed a nest on the branch of an old apple tree. 

 It was composed of dry grass and twigs the very colour of the 

 branch, and but for the gardener I would not have detected it. 

 It was so like in form and size to a green linnet's, that I was 

 much surprised when I found it was a chaffinch's, with five 

 eggs. It was so unlike the neat little nest of the chaffinch that 

 I noted it on that account — as another proof of the deviations of 

 unerring Nature. Amongst many other nests, I found a blue 

 tit's with five eggs in a hole in the garden wall, and got two 

 jackdaw's high up in holes of the poplar trees, besides a 

 starling's, with five deep-sitten eggs, in the stump of a rotten 

 branch of an ash. All these nests got after half-past seven at 

 night, in the grey old city, shows what was done in 1855. I 

 have wandered miles and spent days in the country without 

 seeing so much. 



On the 26th of April 1856 I got a missel thrush's nest, with 

 three eggs, on the horizontal branch of an old, stunted, bent 

 apple tree, only five feet from the ground, in an orchard at the 

 Kinness Burn. I went back on the 5th of May ; the eggs were 

 gone. The gardener said they were taken by the crows or jack- 

 daws. He saw the thrushes drive them away repeatedly, but 

 the nest was so openly placed as if to invite or defy destruction. 

 The crows and daws took up the challenge and won. As 

 already said, the one great principle of life is the strong living 

 on the weak, for I have seen missel thrushes preying on the 

 young of weaker birds, have seen jackdaws killing and eating 

 young sparrows, have seen bigger flies sucking the bodies of 

 smaller ones, and have seen even pious clergymen robbing 

 the poor of their schools ; but although Nature has certain 

 well-defined rapacious servants in all classes of creation, 

 including man, whose instinctive and peculiar mission is to 

 plunder, yet very many species plunder or kill at second-hand 

 when they get the chance, and their own needs require it; 

 for reproduction of species and individual food — or love and 

 hunger — are the two great principles which rule the world. On 

 May 10th, 1888, I saw a missel thrush's nest stuck right upon 

 the top of a cut branch of a poplar tree, at the very entrance 

 at Abbey Park gate, quite close by which the Burgh School 

 children pass. It was as much exposed as if stuck upon a lamp- 



