10 



A HISTORY OF 



notes are usually from the male, while the 

 lien seldom expresses her consent, but in a 

 short interrupted twittering. This compact, 

 at least for the season, holds with unbroken 

 faith ; many birds live with inviolable fidelity 

 together for a constancy ; and when one dies, 

 the other is always seen to share the same fate 

 soon after. We must not take our idea of the 

 conjugal fidelity of birds from observing the 

 poultry in our yards, whose freedom is abridg- 

 ed, and whose manners are totally corrupted 

 by slavery. We must look for it in our fields 

 and our forests, where nature continues in 

 unadulterated simplicity; where the number 

 of males is generally equal to that of females ; 

 and where every little animal seems prouder 

 of his progeny, than pleased with his mate. 

 Were it possible to compare sensations, the 

 male of all wild birds seems as happy in the 

 young brood as the female ; and all his for- 

 mer caresses, all his soothing melodies, seem 

 only aimed at that important occasion, when 

 they are both to become parents, and to edu- 

 cate a progeny of their own producing. The 

 pleasures of love appear dull in their effects, 

 when compared to the interval immediately 

 after the exclusion of their young. They 

 both seem at that season transported with 

 pleasure; every action testifies their pride, 

 their importance, and tender solicitude. 



When the business of fecundation is per- 

 formed, the female then begins to lay. Such 

 eggs as have been impregnated by the cock 

 are prolific : and such as have not, for she 

 lays often without any congress whatsoever, 

 continue barren, and are only addled by in- 

 cubation. Previous, however, to laying, the 

 work of nestling becomes the common care ; 

 and this is performed with no small degree of 

 assiduity and apparent design. It has been 

 asserted, that birds of one kind always make 

 their nests in the same manner, and of the 

 same materials ; hut the truth is that they vary 

 this as the materials, places, or climates, happen 

 to differ. The red-breast, in some parts of Eng- 

 land, makes its nest with oak leaves, where 

 they are in greatest plenty; in other parts, 

 with moss and hair. Some birds, that with 

 us make a very warm nest, are less solicitous 

 in the tropical climates, where the heat of the 

 weather promotes the business of incubation. 

 [n general, however, every species of birds 

 has a peculiar architecture of its own ; and 

 this is adapted to the number of eggs, the tem- 



WATER BIRDS. 



VIII. GRALL/E. Birds found in marshes, with long feet; 

 long, and almost cylindrical, bills, and generally 

 a long neck. 



IX. ANSERES. Swimming birds with oar-like feet, a 

 short bill covered with skin, generally serrated 

 at the edge, and terminated at the extremity of 

 the upper jaw by a little hook. 



perature of the climate, or the respective heat 

 of the little animal's own body. Where the 

 eggs are numerous, it is then incumbent to 

 make the nest warm, that the animal heat 

 may be equally diffused to them all. Thus 

 the wren, and all the small birds, make the 

 nest very warm ; for having many eggs, it is 

 requisite to distribute warmth to them in 

 common : on the contrary, the plover that has 

 but two eggs, the eagle, and the crow, are 

 not so solicitous in this respect, as their bodies 

 are capable of being applied to the small 

 number upon which they sit. With regard 

 to climate, water fowl, that with us make but 

 a very slovenly nest, are much more exact in 

 this particular in the colder regions of the 

 north. They there take every precaution to 

 make it warm ; and some kinds strip the 

 down from their breasts, to line it with greater 

 security. 



1 The construction and selected situations of the nests 

 of birds, are as remarkable as the variety of materials 

 employed in them ; the same forms, places and articles, 

 being rarely, perhaps never, found united by the differ- 

 ent species, which we should suppose similar necessities 

 would direct to a uniform provision. Birds that buikl 

 early in the spring seem to require warmth and shelter 

 for their young; and the blackbird and the thrush line 

 their nests with a plaster of loam, perfectly excluding, 

 by these cottage-like walls, the keen icy gales of our 

 opening year ; yet should accident bereave the parents 

 of their first hopes, they will construct another, even 

 when summer is far advanced, upon the model of their 

 first erection, and with the same precautions against 

 severe weather, when all necessity for such provision has 

 ceased, and the usual temperature of the season rather 

 requires coolness and a free circulation of air. The 

 house sparrow will commonly build four or five times in 

 the year, and in a variety of situations, under the warm 

 eaves of our houses and our sheds, the branch of the 

 clustered fir, or the thick tall hedge that bounds our 

 garden, &c. ; in all which places, and without the least 

 consideration of site or season, it will collect a great mass 

 of straw and hay, and gather a profusion of feathers from 

 the poultry-yard to line its nest This cradle for its 

 young, whether under our tiles in March or in July, 

 when the parent bird is panting in the common heat of 

 the atmosphere, has the same provisions made to afford 

 warmth to the brood ; yet this is a bird that is little af- 

 fected by any of the extremes of our climate. The 

 wood pigeon and the jay, though they erect their fabrics 

 on the tall underwood in the open air, will construct 

 them so slightly, and with such a scanty provision of 

 materials, that they seem scarcely adequate to support 

 their broods, and even their eggs may almost be seen 

 through the loosely connected materials: but the gold- 

 finch, that inimitable spinner, the Arachne of the grove, 

 forms its cradle of fine mosses and lichens, collected 

 from the apple or the pear-tree, compact as a felt, lining 

 it with the down of thistles besides, till it is as warm as 

 any texture of the kind can be, and it becomes a model 

 for beautiful construction. The golden-crested wren, a 

 minute creature perfectly unmindful of any severity in 

 our winter, and which hatches its young in June, the 

 warmer portion of our year, yet builds its most beautiful 

 nest with the utmost attention to warmth ; and inweav- 

 ing small branches of moss with the web of the spider, 

 forms a closely compacted texture nearly an inch in 

 thickness, lining it with such a profusion of feathers, 



