172 THE NESTS OF DIFFERENT BIRDS. 



chinks in the bark of trees, where they had retired 

 in autumn. Such plenty being procurable after the 

 supply of so many months, renders it apparent that 

 there is no actual deficiency of food at any one 

 period of the year. The small slugs, and some few- 

 insects, may perhaps be consumed by the severity 

 of winter, but the larger portion of them are so 

 constituted, as to derive no injury from the in- 

 clemency of that season, but afford during many 

 months provender to other creatures, multitudes 

 yet remaining to continue their races and animate 

 the air, when the warm days of spring shall waken 

 them to active life. 



The construction and selected situations of the 

 nests of birds are as remarkable, as the variety of 

 materials employed in them ; the same forms, 

 places, and articles, being rarely, perhaps never, 

 found united by the different species, which we 

 should suppose similar necessities would direct to a 

 uniform provision. 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 same 



