cHap. 1x.] INSTINCT OF BIRDS. 79 
over with the surrounding herbage, and to hide her little white 
eggs, places a leaf in front of the entrance whenever she leaves 
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 and eagle do the 
same. The magpie seems to depend more orf 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 
