154 ATFECTIOJTS OP BIEDS. 



most rapacious. All the Jiirundines 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 

 Gibraltar, would suifer 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, w r ould 

 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 

 distance, 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 conversation, yet you will, I trust, pardon the 

 repetition for the sake of the illustration. 



The fly-catcher of the Zoology (the stoparola of Bay) builds 

 every year in the vines that grow on the walls of my house.f 

 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 half fledged, 

 the reflection of the wall became insupportable, and must 

 inevitably have destroyed the tender young, had not affection 

 suggested an expedient, and prompted the parent birds to 

 hover over the nest all the hotter hours, while, with wings 

 expanded, and mouths gaping for breath, they screened off 

 the heat from their suffering offspring.^ 



* Many birds, when their nest has been discovered with their young in it, 

 will utter plaintive and distressed cries. I have known blackbirds fly at the 

 face of a person who has taken a young one out of their nest, and have seen a 

 cat assailed by them, and obliged to retreat from the neighbourhood of their 

 nest. ED. 



f* Muscicapa grisola, Linn. W. J. 



This is a charming instance of parental affection, but perhaps not so much 

 so as the following. During a wet day, a house swallow's nest became saturated, 

 and fell to the ground. It contained five unfledged young ones. A lady, 

 who saw the accident, collected the brood, placed the lining of the nest in a 

 small basket, put the young ones in it, and deposited the basket inside the 

 window of her dressing-room. She soon had the pleasure of seeing the old 

 birds come and feed their offspring. One of them was so weak, that it did not 

 receive the same quantity of food as the others, and, consequently, when they 



