148 BRITISH BIRDS. 



about to breed them. Some days after, the people 

 around observed the female still sitting on the egg-s, but 

 the male flew about, and sometimes settling on a nail, be- 

 trayed his uneasiness by a very plaintive note. This 

 led to a nearer examination, when the female in the 

 nest was found to be dead, and her body was thrown 

 away. Singularly enough, the male then went to sit on 

 the eggs, and continued to do so for about two hours, 

 when, perhaps not liking the employment, he gave it up. 

 Still the eggs were not abandoned, for he returned the 

 same afternoon, bringing with him a female, which sat 

 on the nest, hatched the brood, and fed them till they 

 were able to provide for themselves : thus showing his 

 instinctive solicitude for the young by obtaining care for 

 them superior to his own. 



God has made us wiser than the fowls of heaven, but 

 this is often forgotten : how many of the young, for 

 instance, may derive a moral from the following tale. 

 A swallow had unhappily slipped its foot into a slip- 

 knot of packthread, the other end of which was attached 

 to a spout of a public building in France. The strength 

 of the bird was exhausted ; it hung at the end of the 

 thread, uttering its cries, and sometimes raising itself as 

 if endeavouring to fly away. All the swallows of the 

 large basin between the bridges of the Tuilleries and 



