138 The Natural History 



with wool. In this nest they tread, or engender, fre- 

 quently 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 particular provision, that the 

 dung of nestlings is enveloped into a tough kind of jelly, 

 and therefore is the easier conveyed off without soiling 

 or daubing. 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 rjXiKta or full growth, they soon become impatient 

 of confinement, and sit all day with their heads out at the 

 orifice, where the dams, by clinging to the nest, supply 

 ihem with food from morning to night. For a time the 

 young are fed on the wing by their parents ; but the 

 feat is done by so quick and almost imperceptible a 

 sleight, that a person must have attended very exactly to 

 their motions before he would be able to perceive it. As 

 soon as the young are able to shift for themselves, the 

 dams immediately turn their thoughts to the business of 

 a second brood : while the first flight, shaken off and 

 rejected by their nurses, congregate in great flocks, and 

 are the birds that are seen clustering and hovering on 

 sunny mornings and evenings round towers and steeples, 

 and on the roofs of churches and houses. These con- 

 gregatings usually begin to take place about the first 

 week in August ; and therefore we may conclude that 

 by that time the first flight is pretty well over. The 

 young of this species do not quit their abodes all 

 together ; but the more forward birds get abroad some 

 days before the rest. These approaching the eaves of 



