LOVE OF OFFSPRING IN BIRDS. 



tention with the intruders, until it drives them from 

 the place, though it watches and attends, notwith- 

 standing, to its own safety. In April it begins to 

 prepare its nest. This is large and so openly 

 placed, as would, if built in the copse, infallibly 

 expose it to the plunder of the magpie and the crow, 

 which at this season prey upon the eggs of every 

 nest they can find. To avoid this evil, it resorts 

 to our gardens and our orchards, seeking protection 

 from man, near whose haunts those rapacious plun- 

 derers are careful of approaching : yet they will at 

 times attempt to seize upon its eggs even there, 

 when the thrush attacks them and drives them away 

 with a hawk-like fury ; and the noisy warfare of 

 the contending parties occasionally draws our atten- 

 tion to them. The call of the young birds to their 

 parents for food is unusually disagreeable, and 

 reminds us of the croak of a frog. The brood 

 being reared, it becomes again a shy and wild 

 creature, abandons our homesteads, and returns to 

 its solitudes and heaths. 



The extraordinary change of character which 

 many creatures exhibit, from timidity to boldness 

 and rage, from stupidity to art and stratagem, for 

 the preservation of a helpless offspring, seems to 

 be an established ordination of Providence, actuat- 

 ing in various degrees most of the races of animated 

 beings; and we have few examples of this influ- 

 encing principle more obvious than this of the 

 missel bird, in which a creature addicted to solitude 

 and shyness will abandon its haunts, and associate 



