68 



HABITS AND INSTINCTS OF ANIMALS. CHAP. III. 



merable instances may be quoted of other birds which 

 train their young in a manner equally indicative of pa- 

 rental love. Thus, some of the eagles take out their 

 young, before they are fully grown, on purpose to 

 teach them the arts necessary for securing their prey. 

 The female lark conducts hers, to exercise their powers 

 of flight, herself fluttering over their heads, directing 

 their motions, and preserving them from danger. Even 

 the butcher-bird, or common woodchat shrike, con- 

 tinues her regard for her offspring even after they have 

 attained maturity; while the latter reward her care, 

 by assisting her in providing for the support of all, 

 until the following spring.* We may close these fa- 

 miliar instances of parental tenderness, exhibited more 

 particularly by our native birds, with the following 

 anecdote, recorded by White of Selborne : The 



common fly-catcher 

 (fig.l5.)(theStopa- 

 rola of Ray) builds 

 every year in the 

 vines that grow on 

 the walls of my 

 house. A pair of 

 these little birds had, 

 one year, inadvertent- 

 ly placed their nest 

 on a naked bough, perhaps in a shady time, not being 

 aware of the inconvenience that followed : but a hot 

 sunny season coming on before the brood was half fledged, 

 the reflection of the wall became insupportable, and must 

 inevitably have destroyed the young, had not affection 

 suggested an expedient, and prompted the parent birds 

 to hover over the nest all the hotter hours, while, with 

 wings expanded, and mouths gaping for breath, they 

 screened off the heat from their suffering offspring." 

 The courage of the drongo shrikes, found in Africa, is 

 not less striking than that of their natural allies or pro- 

 totypes, the tyrant shrikes of America. " This bird," 



* Wood's Zoology, voj. i. p. 319. 



