OFSELBORNE. 251 



is a sort of rustic-work full of knobs and protuberances 

 on the outside : nor is the inside of those that I have 

 examined smoothed with any exactness at all; but is 

 rendered soft and warm, and fit for incubation, by a 

 lining of small straws, grasses, and feathers ; and some- 

 times by a bed of moss interwoven with wool. In this 

 nest they tread, or engender, frequently during the time 

 of building ; and the hen lays from three to five white 

 eggs. **< . 



At first when the young are hatched, and are in a 

 naked and helpless condition, the parent birds, with 

 tender assiduity, carry out what comes away from their 

 young. Was it not for this affectionate cleanliness 

 the nestlings would soon be burnt up, and destroyed 

 in so deep and hollow a nest, by their own caustic 

 excrement. In the quadruped creation, the same neat 

 precaution is made use of; particularly among dogs 

 and cats, where the dams lick away what proceeds from 

 their young. But in birds there seems to be a particu- 

 lar provision, that the dung of nestlings is enveloped in 

 a tough kind of jelly, and therefore is the easier con- 

 veyed off without soiling or daubing 1 . Yet, as Nature 

 is cleanly in all her ways, the young perform this office 

 for themselves, in a little time, by thrusting their tails 

 out at the aperture of their nest. As the young of small 

 birds presently arrive at their qA/x/a, or full growth, they 



1 It is a very curious provision made by nature, that the dung of 

 all nestlings is enclosed in a thin membrane, which enables the old birds 

 to carry it away in their bills, which they do regularly each time they 

 bring food to the nest. The young instinctively, even before they can 

 see, protrude their hind quarters to eject the dung from the nest ; but if 

 the parent did not carry it away, there would be a congeries of dirt under 

 the nest, which would not only be uncleanly, but would attract attention 

 and discover their retreat. As long as young birds are kept to their 

 nest in a basket or box, the membranous covering continues ; if they are 

 let out to perch, it ceases ; if they are shut down again in the nest or 

 basket, it reappears. The warmth and quiescence of the nest certainly 

 occasion it, and principally the quiescence ; but how it should have that 

 effect I cannot pretend to understand. It is a marvellous provision of 

 Almighty wisdom. W. H. 



