CHAP, ix.] INSTINCT OF BIRDS. 79 



over with the surrounding herbage, and to hide her little white 

 e-s, places a leaf in front of the entrance whenever she leaves 



OO ' r 



her nest. When the partridge quits her eggs for the purpose of 

 feeding, she covers them in the most careful manner, and even 

 closes up her run by which she goes to and fro through the sur- 

 rounding grass. The same plan is adopted by the wild duck, 

 who hides her eggs and nest by covering them with dead leaves, 

 sticks, and other substances, which she afterwards smooths care- 

 fully over so as entirely to conceal all traces of her dwelling. 

 There are several domesticated wild ducks, who build their nests 

 about the flower-beds and lawn near the windows a privilege 

 they have usurped rather against the will of my gardener. Tame 

 as these birds are, it is almost impossible to catch them in the 

 act of going to or from their nests. They take every precaution 

 to escape observation, and will wait for a long time rather than 

 go to their nests if people are about the place. 



The peewits, who lay their eggs on the open fields with 

 scarcely any nest, always manage to choose a spot where loose 

 stones or other substances of the same colour as their eggs are 

 scattered about. The terns lay their eggs in the same manner 

 amongst the shingle and gravel. So do the ring-dottrel, the 

 oyster-catcher, and several other birds of the same description ; 

 all of them selecting spots where the gravel resembles their eggs 

 in size and colour. Without these precautions, the grey crows 

 and other egg-eating birds would leave but few to be hatched. 



The larger birds, the size of whose nests does not admit of 

 their concealment, generally take some precautions to add to 

 their safety. A raven, who builds in a tree, invariably fixes on 

 the one that is most difficult to climb. She takes up her abode 

 in one whose large size and smooth trunk, devoid of branches, 

 set at defiance the utmost efforts of the most expert climbers of 

 the village school. When she builds on a cliff', she fixes on a 

 niche protected by some projection of the rock from all attacks 

 both from above and below, at the same time choosing the most. 

 inaccessible part of the precipice. The falcon ami eaijle do the 

 same. The magpie seems to depend more on the fortification of 

 brambles and thorns with which she surrounds her nest than to 

 the situation which she fixes upon. There is one kind of swallow 

 which breeds very frequently about the caves and rocks on the 



