THE NESTS OF DIFFERENT BIRDS. 173 



precautions against severe weather, when all neces- 

 sity for such provision has ceased, and the usual 

 temperature of the season rather requiring 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 or season, it will col- 

 lect a great mass of straws and hay, and gather a 

 profusion of feathers from the poultry-yard to line 

 its 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 provisions 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 wood 

 pigeon and the jay, though they erect their fabrics 

 on the tall underwood in the open air, will construct 

 them so slightly, and with such a scanty provision 

 of materials, that they seem scarcely adequate to 

 support their broods, and even their eggs may 

 almost be seen through the loosely connected mate- 

 rials : 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, lining it with the down 

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



