18 NATURALIST'S CABINET. 



Interesting anecdote. 



to the subsistence of herself or species, she is 

 a very ideot." 



Of the anxiety and courage of birds, in the 

 preservation of their brood, and their instinctive 

 discernment, we have a singular instance related 

 by Professor Reimar, and such a one as perhaps 

 seldom occurred to the observation of naturalists. 



" Two robins," says he, " had their nest within 

 a small hollow of a rock, which was shaded by a 

 spreading oak : the female had five eggs, which 

 she hatched with such assiduity that both I and 

 others often viewed her very near, and even 

 touched her, without her making the least mo- 

 tion tO'avoid the apparent danger. 



" One day my lying-in bird was absent, and I 

 apprehended she had forsaken her nest ; but my 

 suspicions were changed on seeing a cuckoo 

 hopping along an adjoining descent, and which 

 finally alighted on a tree near where I stood, at 

 the same time I perceived my robins watching 

 the cuckoo's motions. It occurred to me that it 

 is the practice of the female cuckoo to lay its 

 eggs in the nest of some other small bird, and 

 such seemed her present intention. Reason 

 would have taught the robins to post themselves 

 in the nest, the better to defend it, but instinct 

 determined them to keep at a distance, and put 

 the enemy on a wrong scent: accordingly the 

 nearer it approached the nest, the more alertly 

 the robins strove to mislead it, by fluttering 



