APRIL. 71 



against rain for them. In windy weather, how- 

 ever, the rook-nests are frequently blown clown, 

 and the sparrows, in great numbers, share their 

 fate. The spotted fly-catcher has found a 

 square hole in the wall, or a branch of a tree 

 trained against it, where its nest and red-spot- 

 ted eggs are deposited. If it be a half-timbered 

 house, it is ten to one but that the red-start has 

 found a hole too, in one of the upright tim- 

 bers, in which its nest and sea-green eggs are 

 deposited; or the little tomtit has occupied that 

 post. This active little bird, which we see in 

 the shrubbery swinging about at the ends of 

 slender boughs in pursuit of caterpillars, etc. 

 will sometimes become so tenacious of its dwell- 

 ing, that I have known one build within the 

 window-frame of a sitting-room, which, when 

 any of the family knocked on the wood close 

 to its nest, would immediately reply by several 

 smart raps with its bill. This answer was never 

 omitted during the period of incubation by the 

 bird, which built there for several successive 

 years. This, and most other birds which build 

 about the habitations of men, very commonly 

 depart from that regularity of instinct which 

 prompts them to employ only material of a 

 certain kind in their nests, and gather up pieces 

 of cotton, shreds of cloth, and even needles and 

 thread, which have been found worked up into 



