272 ■ THE UNIVERSE. 



rials employed are iu proportion to the strength of the 

 architect. The eyry of the eagle is only a hea]:) of great 

 branches of trees, an entangled faggot, forming a thick 

 rnde mattress, twelve to fifteen feet in circnmference. This 

 nest serves the couple which build it for their whole lives, 

 l:)ut its size increases with years, because the bones of all 

 the animals brought thither by the parents and devoured 

 l)y the hungry family, are heaped up round it in such a 

 manner, that at a certain lajjse of time the eyry of one of 

 these robbers becomes a pestilential charnel-house. 



The nests built by the goshawk display even less skill : 

 it employs only little faggots, and yet its nest is four feet 

 in circumference. 



Some of our idlers, resolved to do no work at all, be- 

 come nothing more or less than thieves ; others, more 

 courageous, are regular brigands. The latter attack face 

 to face the enemy they want to devour; the others throw 

 their victim from the window in order to take possession 

 of its domicile. 



To this legion belong the voracious butcher-birds of our 

 woods, which slaughter so many little birds and spit their 

 Ijodies on the thorns of om^ thickets. 



In the ranks of the most obstinate thieves we must 

 place our sparrows. Linnteus and Gmelin relate as an 

 established fact, that before the return of the swallows, a 

 sparrow will sometimes take possession of the dwelling- 

 deserted by the travellers. Here it installs itself, and 

 when the legitimate proprietors return, threatens to cut 

 them open with its powerful bill. The plundered swallows 

 call their companions in the vicinity to their help. Then 

 begins the siege of the place ; some retain the enemy a 

 prisoner, whilst others occupy themselves in Availing up 

 the doorway with qiiantities of pellets of earth, and in a 



