OF SELBORNE. 243 



ness, but will wait about at a distance with meat in 

 her mouth for an hour together. 



Should I farther corroborate what I have advanced 

 above by some anecdotes which I probably may have 

 mentioned before in conversation, yet you will, I trust, 

 pardon the repetition for the sake of the illustration. 



The flycatcher of the Zoology (the Stoparola 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 

 inadvertently placed their nest on a naked bough, per- 

 haps in a shady time, not being aware of the inconve- 

 nience 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 tender 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. 



A farther instance I once saw of notable sagacity in 

 a willow wren, which had built in a bank in my fields. 

 This bird a friend and myself had observed as she sat 

 in her nest ; but were particularly careful not to dis- 

 turb her, though we saw she eyed us with some degree 

 of jealousy. Some days after, as we passed that way, 

 we were desirous of remarking how this brood went on ; 

 but no nest could be found, till I happened to take up 

 a large bundle of long green moss, as it were, carelessly 

 thrown over the nest, in order to doclge the eye of any 

 impertinent intruder. 



A still more remarkable mixture of sagacity and 

 instinct occurred to me one day as my people were 

 pulling off the lining of a hotbed, in order to add some 

 fresh dung. From out of the side of this bed leaped an 

 animal with great agility that made a most grotesque 

 figure; nor was it without great difficulty that it could 

 be taken ; when it proved to be a large white-bellied field 

 mouse with three or four young clinging to her teats by 



R2 



