36 THE LIFE OF A BIRD. 



narrated by Mr. Selby of the proceedings of a 

 pair of these birds, which beheld their dwelling 

 imperilled by the floods. In order to avoid the 

 destruction of their nest and the loss of their 

 eggs, these birds conveyed away their eggs to a 

 place of safety, where they left them, and then, 

 returning to their nest, constructed another storey 

 to it, which raised it above the risk of the flood, 

 and in this ingenious receptacle they then re- 

 placed the eggs which they had conveyed away ! 

 Sometimes it appears as if they had been taught 

 by bitter experience the dangers of their accus- 

 tomed situations. Rusticus relates a case appa- 

 rently of this kind. In one of his ornithological 

 excursions, he paid a visit to a lake stored with 

 water-fowl. " Having pushed off from the shore, 

 and moored the little shallop to some of the osiers 

 which surrounded the island, I began my accus- 

 tomed examination. The first object that at- 

 tracted my attention was a lot of dry rushes, 

 flags, reeds, &c., enough to fill a couple of bushel 

 baskets. This mass was lodged about twenty 

 feet from the ground in a spruce fir-tree, and 

 looked for all the world as if it had been 

 pitched there with a hay-fork. I mounted in- 

 stantly, thinking of herons, eagles, and a variety 



