138 



THE NATURAL HISTORY 



[LETT 



birds will assault the most rapacious. All the hirundines of a 

 village are up in arms at the sight of a 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 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 cliffs of the rocks to chase away the kestrel or the 



PIED rLVCATCIIKK. 



sparrow-hawk. If you stand near the nest of a bird that ha.s 

 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 further 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 flycatcher of the Zoology (the Stoparola of Eay) builds 

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



