; AND AMERICAN RURAL SPORTS. 
When they have been kept alive, and fed for some. > time 
en corn and buckwheat, their flesh ‘acquires great supe= ~ 
riofity ; but in their common state they are He and black- 
ish, and far in - to the full growns young ones,’or 
stglabs. : : 
The young, when beginning to fly, confine themselves 
aoe under part of the tall woods where there is no 
e nuts.and acorns are, abundant, searching 
cavege r mast, and paper like a prodigious 
or! rent rolling ¢ along through"the woods, @very.oné striv- 
.».ing to bein the Bane Vast numbers ¢ of them»are shot 
while in this situation. A person told 1 me, that he once 
rode furiously into one ofthese rolling multitudes, and 
picked up thirteen Pigeons, which had “yED trampled to 
death by his horse’s feet. In a few minutes they will beat 
the whole nuts froma tree with their wings; while all 
is scramble, both above and below, for the same. They 
_ have the same cooing notes common to domestic Pigeons; 
but much less of their gesticulations. In some flocks you 
will find nothing but young ones, which are easily distin- 
guishable by their motley dress. In others they will be 
mostly females; and again great multitudes of males, with 
few or no females. 1 cannot account for this in any other 
- way than that during the time of incubation the males are 
exclusively Fy in procuring food, both for them- 
selyes and their mates; and the young being unable yet 
to undertake extensive excursions, associate to- 
gether accordin But even in winter I know of seve- 
ral species of birds who separate in this manner, particu- 
larly the Red-winged Starling, among whom thousands 
of old males may be found, with few or no young, or 
females along with them.—Wzuison. 
BUILDING A NEST. 
eS e ue lee 
Tue romantic, though accurate naturalist, Vaillant, 
has given, a | is « Oiseaux, d Afrique,” e following 
lively narrative of the proceedings of a pair of smell Afri- 
can bird8 in the construction of a nes 
trivedy by tempting tit-bits, to render the species alluded 
to, which he ealls the-Capocier, so familiar, thal 
a pa 
of these birds ae ee his tent several ines a innocent an 
day, and even seemed recognise hi the adjace 
thickets as he passed along. « ‘The k breeds ee —° 
goes on, ‘‘had no sooner arrived, than percei the 
visits of my two little guests to -become less frequent, 
though, whether they sought solitude the better to mature 
their plans, or whether, as the rains had ceased and insects 
became so abundant that my tit-bits.were less relished, I 
XK 
He had con- 
269 
cannot tell, but Dey. ido made their appearance for 
- four or feve successive days, after which they unexpected- 
ly returned; and it was not long before I discovered the 
motives that had brought them hagte During their for- 
mer visits they had not failed to observe the cotton, moss, 
and flax which I used to stuff my with, and which 
were always lyi ing upon my table. inding it, no doubt, 
much more conics to come and furnish themselves 
with these articles there than to go and pick the down 
from the branches of plants, I saw them ° carry away in 
their beaks pareels of these, much larger in bulk than 
themselves. 
» «¢Having followed and watched them, I found the place 
which they had selected for constructing the cradle which 
should contain their infant progeny. In a corner of a re- 
tired and neglected garden, there grew, by the side of a 
small spring beneath the shelter of the only tree which 
ornamented that retreat, a high plant, called by the colo- 
nists of the Cape, C osche. In this shrub they had 
already laid a part of ne foundation with moss, the fork 
of the branches chosen for the reception of the nest being 
already bedded therewith. The first materials were laid 
on the 11th of October. The second day’s labour pre- 
sented a rude mass, about four inches in thickness, and 
from five to six inches indiameter. This was the founda- 
tion of the nest, which was composed of moss and flax, in- 
terwoven with grass and tufts of cotton. 
“TI passed the whole of the second day by the side of 
the nest, which the female never quitted from the mo- 
ment my windows were opened in the morning till near- 
ly ten o’clock, and from five o’clock in the evening till 
seven. On the morning of the 12th, the male made 
recat aes to my room, and in the evening only 
seventeen. He gave great assistance to the female in 
trampling down and pressing the cotton with his body, in 
order to make it into a sort of felt-work. 
s¢ When the male arrived with parcels of moss and cot- 
Mose a ‘deposited his load either on the edge of the nest, 
within the reach ce the fone He 
work. 
< This agreeable occupation was often ey by 
ed to bes 1 
building, a have less relies for anne than the sae 
and she even punished him for his frolies by pecking him 
He, o other hand, fought in 
well with her beak 
his pecked; pulled do work which they had 
done, prevented the female from continuing her labours, 
and, in a word, seemed to tell her, ‘ You, refuse to be my 
te 
