128 IN NATURE'S WAYS 



small straws, grasses, and feathers ; and sometimes by a bed of 

 moss interwoven with wool. The hen lays from three to five white 

 eggs. 



As the small birds presently arrive at their full growth, they soon 

 become impatient of confinement, and sit all day with their heads 

 out at the orifice, where the dams, by clinging to the nest, supply 

 them with food from morning to night. For a time, the young are 

 fed on the wing by their parents : but the feat is done by so quick 

 and almost imperceptible a sleight, that a person must have attended 

 very exactly to their motions before he would be able to perceive it. 



As soon as the young are able to shift for themselves, the dams 

 immediately turn their thoughts to the business of a second brood ; 

 while the first flight, shaken off and rejected by their nurses, congre- 

 gate in great flocks, and are the birds that are seen clustering and 

 hovering, on sunny mornings and evenings, round towers and 

 steeples, and on the roofs of churches and houses. These congrega- 

 tions usually begin to take place about the first week in August ; 

 and, therefore, we may conclude that, by that time, the first flight is 

 pretty well over. The young of this species do not quit their abodes 

 altogether ; but the more forward birds get abroad some days before 

 the rest. These, approaching the eaves of buildings, and playing 

 about before them, make people think that several old ones attend 

 one nest. G. W. 



