98 APRIL. 



very topmost bough of the pear; and the small 

 brown linnet (fringilla linaria) often builds too in the 

 latter situation. Its nest is of the most beautiful de- 

 scription, fabricated of a mixture of moss and wool, 

 and lined with the pure white down of the willow 

 catkin; the whole interior not much exceeding in 

 size the hollow half of a hen's egg. Its eggs, five 

 in number, are of a delicate bluish-gray, brown 

 spotted. 



In the orchard hedge too is commonly found the 

 nest of the hedge-sparrow, called often too the 

 foolish sparrow, because it, perhaps more than any 

 other bird, has the trouble of hatching the cuckoo's 

 egg, and rearing its young at the expense of its own, 

 imposed upon it. Whether the cuckoo is guilty of 

 sucking the eggs of small birds, at least to the extent 

 commonly supposed, is to me doubtful. That vast 

 quantities are sucked, is certain. I have found 

 abundance of nests with the shells in them newly 

 emptied ; but it is probable that snakes, mice, and 

 more especially weasels, are more frequently the 

 delinquents. I have myself seen snakes climbing 

 in the hedges in a very suspicious manner ; and 

 weasels and stoats, we know, will visit the farm-yard, 

 and make vast havoc with the eggs of all sorts of 

 tame fowl. The principal food of the cuckoo con- 

 sists certainly of caterpillars ; having, to ascertain 

 this point, shot one while uttering its note, and found 

 its crop distended with caterpillars of various kinds. 

 But for some, no doubt very sufficient reason, the 

 small birds do consider the cuckoo their enemy, and 



