506 TREES, THE TITMOUSE AND THE WOODPECKER. 



have better luck for the time to come. I sent the nest and eggs to 

 England by a different route from that which I myself pursued. 

 Had I taken them with me, they would have gone to the bottom of 

 the Mediterranean Sea, for, in the night of the i6th of June 1841, 

 my sisters-in-law, Miss Edmonstone and Miss Helen Edmonstone, 

 my little boy, my servants, and myself, were wrecked off the Island 

 of Elba. We had only fifteen minutes to save our lives before the 

 vessel foundered, and we lost everything except the clothes on our 

 backs. 



The solitary thrush is seen in all the countries of the East, up to 

 Syria and Egypt, and probably much farther on. This bird is soli- 

 tary to the fullest extent of the word. It being an assiduous fre- 

 quenter of the habitations of man, I cannot have a doubt but that 

 it was the same bird which King David saw on the house-top before 

 him, and to which he listened as it poured forth its sweet and 

 plaintive song. Moved by its melody, and comparing its lonely 

 habits with his own, lie exclaimed, in the fulness of an afflicted 

 heart, " Vigilavi, et factus sum sicut passer solitarius in tecto " " I 

 have watched, and am become as a thrush, all alone upon the house- 

 top/' 



TREES, THE TITMOUSE AND THE 

 WOODPECKER. 



THE tree, that noble and gigantic son of earth, is the favourite 

 resort of most birds; and so intimately is it connected with the 

 charming science of ornithology, that he who has neglected to pay 

 attention to it will often find himself at a loss to give correct infor- 

 mation, in his description of the habits of the feathered tribes. The 

 bloom, the fruit, the health and vigour of a tree, are interwoven with 

 the economy of birds. Do you wish to have a view of seven or 

 eight different species of colibri, collected at one tree ? Wait, in 

 patience, till the month of July ; when a vast profusion of red 

 flowers on the bois immortel (a tree well-known to every planter in 



