BIRDS' NESTS. 195 



scarcely less astonished than the bird. He 

 clapped his hands, and the cat disappeared 

 in one direction, and the bird scrambled away 

 in the other. Mr. Miller could only account 

 for this strange proceeding, by supposing 

 either that the bird's angry clatter had really 

 made the cat cautious how she touched it, or 

 that finding it in the garden-walk, and near 

 the house, in a place where a brood of chickens 

 were sometimes allowed to run about, she 

 had confounded it with one of them, and 

 abstained from what appeared to her to be her 

 master's property. However this may be, the 

 courageous little fellow was saved from an 

 early death. He did not go back to the nest, 

 from which, perhaps he had fallen by acci- 

 dent, but he was often heard among the bushes 

 asking in his way for food, and an old bird was 

 frequently seen in his neighbourhood, and heard 

 uttering the peculiar note with which some 

 birds accompany the feeding of their young. 

 Some other broods were not so fortunate* 

 o2 



