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at jtatuval ^t 



liar to instinctive knowledge, to discover 

 the route they are to take, from the appear- 

 ance of the atmosphere, the clouds, the 

 direction of the winds, and other causes ; 

 so that, without having recourse to impro- 

 bable modes, it is easy to conceive, from the 

 velocity of their speed alone, that most birds 

 may transport themselves to countries lying 

 at great distances, and across vast tracts of 

 ocean. 



At the approach of spring, birds begin to 

 pair, and to provide for the support of their 

 future progeny ; and the loudest notes, on 

 such occasions, generally proceed from the 

 tuneful throats of the males, while the 

 females express their consent in short in- 

 terrupted twitterings. The compacts then 

 entered into between the two sexes are, for 

 the season at least, faithfully observed : but 

 many birds live together for years with 

 inviolable fidelity ; and when one of them 

 dies, the other does not long survive. We 

 are of course not speaking of the poultry in 

 our yards ; but of those denizens of the air 

 where Nature retains her unadulterated 

 simplicity ; where the number of males is 

 generally equal to that of the females ; and 

 where every little animal seems no less 

 pleased with its progeny than wedded to its 

 mate. 



The Nests of Birds now claim our notice ; 

 for they are constructed with such exquisite 

 art, as to exceed the utmost exertion of 

 human ingenuity to imitate them with 

 perfect success. Their mode of building, 

 the materials they make use of, as well as 

 the situations they select, are as various as 

 the different kinds of birds, and are all 

 admirably adapted to their several wants 

 and necessities. Birds of the same species, 

 whatever region of the globe they inhabit, 

 collect the same kind of materials, arrange 

 them in the same manner, and make choice 

 of similar situations for fixing the places of 

 their temporary abodes. Every part of the 

 world furnishes materials for the aerial ar- 

 chitects : leaves and small twigs, roots and 

 dried grass mixed with clay, serve for the 

 external ; whilst moss, wool, fine hair, and 

 the softest animal and vegetable downs, form 

 the warm internal part of these commodious 

 dwellings. On this subject the author of 

 " The Journal of a Naturalist " thus writes : 

 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 excluding, 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 

 precautions against severe weather, when 

 all necessity 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 j 

 or season, it will collect a great mass of 

 straw and hay, and gather a profusion of 

 feathers from the poultry-yard to line its j 

 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 pro- 

 visions made to afford warmth to the brood ; 

 yet this is a bird that is little affected by ! 

 any of the extremes of our climate. The j 

 Wood- pigeon and the Jay, though they erect ! 

 their fabrics in the tall underwood in the j 

 open air, will construct them so slightly, 

 and with such a scanty provision of mate- : 

 rials, that they seem scarcely adequate to 

 support their broods, and even their eggs 

 may almost be seen through the loosely- 

 connected materials: but the Goldfinch, that 

 inimitable spinner, the Arachne of the grove, 

 forms its cradle of fine mosses and lichens, 

 collected from the apple or the pear-tree, 

 compact as a felt, luring it with the down , 

 of thistles besides, till it is as warm as any ' 

 texture of the kind can be, and it becomes 

 a model for beautiful construction. The ' 

 golden-crested Wren, a minute creature, per- j 

 fectly unmindful of any severity in our 

 winter, and which hatches its young in 

 June, the warmer portion of our year, yet 

 builds its most beautiful nest with the ! 

 utmost attention to warmth ; and, inter- I 

 weaving small branches of moss with the I 

 web of the spider, forms a closely-compacted I 

 texture nearly an inch in thinkness, lining j 

 it with such a profusion of feathers, that j 

 sinking deep into this downy accumulation | 

 it seems almost lost itself when sitting, and I 

 the young, when hatched, appear stifled 

 with the warmth of their bedding and the 

 heat of their apartment ; while the White- | 

 throat, the Black-cap, and others, which I 

 will hatch their young nearly at the same ! 

 period, or in July, will require nothing of j 

 the kind. A few loose bents and goose-grass, 

 rudely entwined, with perhaps the luxury 

 of some scattered hairs, are perfectly suffi- 

 cient for all the wants of these ; yet they 

 are birds that live only in genial tempera- 

 tures, feel nothing of the icy gales that are 

 natural to our pretty indigenous artists, but 

 flit from sun to sun, and we might suppose 

 would require much warmth in our climate 

 during the season of incubation ; but it is 

 not so. The Greenfinch places its nest with 

 little regard to concealment ; its fabric is 

 slovenly and rude, and the materials of the 

 coarsest kinds ; while the Chaffinch, just 

 above it in the elm, hides its nest with cau- 

 tious care, and moulds it with the utmost at- 

 tention to order, neatness, and form. One 

 bird must have a hole in the ground ; to 

 another, a crevice in a wall, or a chink in a 

 tree, is indispensable. The Bullfinch re- 

 quires fine roots for its nest ; the grey Fly- 

 catcher will have cobwebs for the outworks 

 of its shed. All the parus tribe, except the 

 individual above mentioned, select some 

 hollow in a tree or cranny in a wall ; and, 

 sheltered as such places must be, yet will 

 they collect abundance of feathers and warm 

 materials for their infants' bed. Endless 

 examples might be found of the dissimilarity 



