164 AFFECTIONS OF BIRDS. 



creation. Thus an hen, just become a mother, is 

 no longer that placid bird she used to be ; but, with 

 feathers standing on end, wings hovering, and cluck- 

 ing note, she runs about like one possessed. Dams 

 will throw themselves in the way of the greatest 

 danger in order to avert it from their progeny. Thus 

 a partridge will tumble along before a sportsman, 

 in order to draw away the dogs from her helpless 

 covey. In the time of nidification, the most feeble 

 birds will assault the most rapacious. All the hirun- 

 dines of a village are up in arms at the sight of an 

 hawk, whom they will persecute till he leaves that 

 district. A very exact observer has often remarked, 

 that a pair of ravens, nesting in the rock of Gib- 

 raltar, would suffer no vulture or eagle to rest near 

 their station, but would drive them from the hill 

 with an amazing fury : even the blue thrush, at the 

 season of breeding, would dart out from the clefts of 

 the rocks to chase away the kestrel, or the sparrow- 

 hawk. If you stand near the nest of a bird that has 

 young, she will not be induced to betray them by an 

 inadvertent fondness, but will wait about at a dis- 

 tance, with meat in her mouth, for an hour together. 



Should I farther corroborate what I have advanced 

 above, by some anecdotes which I probably may have 

 mentioned before in conversatio'n, yet you will, I 

 trust, pardon the repetition for the sake of the illus- 

 tration. 



The fly-catcher of the Zoology (the stoparola of 

 Ray) builds every year in the vines that grow on 

 the walls of my house*. A pair of these little birds 

 had one year inadvertently placed their nest on a 

 naked bough, perhaps in a shady time, not being 

 aware of the inconvenience that followed. But an 

 hot sunny season coming on before the brood was 



* Musdcapa grisola, Linn. W. J. 



