81? THE LIFE OF A BIRD. 



ninth volume of the Magazine of Natural History. 

 A pair of martins had built a nest to the upper 

 cornice of one of the highest houses in Cheltenham. 

 A sparrow, envying them their situation, took 

 possession of the nest, to the great annoyance of 

 the poor martins, who for some time in vain 

 endeavoured to expel the intruder ; at length the 

 sparrow got his neck entangled in a straw, and 

 the martins, taking immediate advantage of the 

 circumstance, succeeded in throwing him out of 

 the nest. Not being able to free himself from the 

 straw, the sparrow's efforts to liberate himself 

 only accelerated his fate, and he is now hanging 

 by the neck about a foot below the nest, quite 

 dead a spectacle which ought to strike whole- 

 some terror into every member of his species in 

 the vicinity. What the sparrow does to martins 

 in England, that the house-wren does in America 

 to woodpeckers. 



Occasionally enemies of a different kind invade 

 the nest, and dispute its possession with its lawful 

 owners and architects. A most remarkable con- 

 test of this kind is narrated by Mr. Blackwall. 

 For a long series of years a pair of pied fly-catchers 

 had incubated their eggs and nurtured their 



