CHAP, xxxin.] INSTINCT IN BIRDS. 253 



CHAPTER XXXIII. 



Peculiarities and Instinct of Different Animals. 



I CANXOT conclude these hasty sketches without remarking that 

 few people are aware of the numberless subjects of interest and 

 observation to be found in the habits and structure of the com- 

 monest birds and animals, which pass before our eyes every day 

 of our lives. How perfectly are all these adapted to their 

 respective modes of living and feeding. In every garden and 

 shrubbery the naturalist finds amusement in watching its living 

 tenants. Look at the chaffinch, how it adapts the colour and 

 even the shape of its nest to the spot in which it is placed, 

 covering the outside with materials of the same colour as the bark 

 of the tree in which it is. So do also all the other small birds. 

 Again, they line their nests with materials of the same colour as 

 their eggs. The chaffinch lines it with wool and feathers mixed 

 together, giving it a background of nearly the same hue as the 

 shell of the eggs. The greenfinch lines it with light-coloured 

 feathers, collected from the poultry-yard, as her eggs are neaily 

 white. The yellowhammer has a greyish egg with stripy marks ; 

 she lint's her nest with horsehair. The robin's eggs being of a 

 reddish-brown, she makes use of dried grass and similar sub- 

 stances. The prevailing colour of the hedge-sparrow's nest is 

 green, and her eggs are of a greenish-blue ; and in the same 

 manner all our common and unregarded birds adapt both the 

 outside and the lining of their nests to the colour of the sur- 

 rounding substances and that of their own eggs respectively. In 

 the same manner they all have bills adapted to the food on which 

 they live the grain- feed ing birds having short, strong man- 

 dibles, while those of the insectivorous birds are longer and more 

 slender, and as perfectly adapted for searching in crannies and 

 corners for the insects and eggs that may be hidden there, as the 

 former are for cutting and shelling the seeds and grain on which 

 they feed. 



