PERCHING BIRDS. Ill 



was, singularly enough, chosen every year, and some- 

 times twice in the season, as the site for a nest. The 

 stove was only used every fortnight, and in this time the 

 nest was built and some eggs always laid, but I never 

 knew the parents bring up a brood, for the smoking of 

 the stove always led to the obstruction being discovered 

 and removed ; and sometimes I have found the eggs 

 quite baked with the heat. 



The space underneath the tiles of my own house was 

 generally occupied by a pair or two of sparrows, and 

 hearing one day a very noisy commotion on the roof, 

 and seeing numerous birds flying to and fro in apparent 

 trepidation, as if some calamity had befallen them, I was 

 convinced something was the matter, and procuring a 

 ladder I mounted to the spot, and at once discovered 

 the reason for all the outcry. One of the owners of a 

 nest underneath the tiles the female in passing 

 through the small aperture leading to her domicile, and 

 which at the lower end tapered quickly, had evidently 

 slipped, and her neck had become so securely wedged 

 between the tiles that escape was impossible. Her dying 

 struggles attracted her neighbours, who with great good- 

 will had done their best to extricate her from her un- 

 fortunate position ; their zeal, however, was greater than 

 their discretion, for they had pulled and tugged so 

 earnestly that, when I arrived on the scene, hardly a 

 feather was left on the body, which of course was 

 lifeless. 



I remember another similar instance, and on the 

 same roof too, where a young one in leaving the nest 

 had got its leg entangled in a loop of a piece of worsted 

 which was amongst the materials composing the nest. 

 It vainly tried to free itself, and, as in the former inr 



