XXVlll 



INTRODUCTION. 



Golden-crowned Thrush {^Seiurus ain^ocapillus) makes a nest 

 like an oven, erecting an arch over it so perfectly resem- 

 bling the tussuck in which it is concealed that it is only dis- 

 coverable by the emotion of the female when startled from its 

 covert. 



The Butcher-bird is said to draw around him his feathered 

 victims by treacherously imitating their notes. The Kingfisher 

 of Europe is believed to allure his prey by displaying the 

 brilliancy of his colors as he sits near some sequestered place 

 on the margin of a rivulet ; the fish, attracted by the splen- 

 dor of his fluttering and expanded wings, are detained while 

 the wily fisher takes an unerring aim.^ The Erne, and our 

 Bald Eagle, gain a great part of their subsistence by watching 

 the success of the Fish Hawk, and robbing him of his finny prey 

 as soon as it is caught. In the same way also the rapacious 

 Burgomaster, or Glaucous Gull (^Lariis glaucus), of the North 

 levies his tribute of food from all the smaller species of his 

 race, who, knowing his strength and ferocity, are seldom inclined 

 to dispute his piratical claims. Several species of Cuckoo, and 

 the Cow Troopial of America, habitually deposit their eggs in 

 the nests of other small birds, to whose deceived affection are 

 committed the preservation and rearing of the parasitic and 

 vagrant brood. The instinctive arts of birds are numerous; 

 but treachery, like that which obtains in these parasitic species, 

 is among the rarest expedients of nature in the feathered 

 tribes, though not uncommon among some insect families. 



The art displayed by birds in the construction of their tem- 

 porary habitations, or nests, is also deserving of passing 

 attention. Among the Gallinaceous tribe, including our land 

 domestic species, as well as the aquatic and wading kinds, 

 scarcely any attempt at a nest is made. The birds which swarm 

 along the sea-coast often deposit their eggs on the bare ground, 

 sand, or slight depressions in shelving rocks ; governed alone 

 by grosser wants, their mutual attachment is feeble or nugatory, 

 and neither art nor instinct prompts attention to the construc- 



1 The bright feathers of this bird enter often successfully, with others, into 

 the composition of the most attractive artificial flies employed by anglers. 



