THE NESTS OF DIFFERENT BIRDS. 167 



nests of birds are as remarkable as the variety of 

 materials employed in them ; the same forms, 

 places, and articles, being rarely, perhaps never, 

 found united by the different species, which we 

 should suppose similar necessities would direct to 

 a uniform provision. Birds that build early in 

 the spring seem to require warmth and shelter for 

 their young; and the blackbird and the thrush line 

 their nests with a plaster of loam, perfectly exclud- 

 ing, by these cottage-like walls, the keen icy gales 

 of our opening year : yet, should accident bereave 

 the parents of their first hopes, they will construct 

 another, even when summer is far advanced, upon 

 the model of their first erection, and with the same 

 precautions against severe weather, when all neces- 

 sity for such provision has ceased, and the usual 

 temperature of the season rather requires coolness 

 and a free circulation of air. The house- sparrow 

 will commonly build four or five times in the year, 

 and in a variety of situations, under the warm 

 eaves of our houses and our sheds, the branch of the 

 clustered fir, or the thick tall hedge that bounds 

 our garden, &c. ; in all which places, and without 

 the least consideration of site or season, it will col- 

 lect a great mass of straw and hay, and gather a 

 profusion of feathers from the poultry-yard to line 

 its nest. This cradle for its young, whether under 

 our tiles in March or in July, when the parent bird 

 is panting in the common heat of the atmosphere, 

 has the same provisions made to afford warmth to 

 the brood ; yet this is a bird that is little affected 



