274 WILD SPORTS OF THE HIGHLANDS. [cnap. xxxv 
especially when near their time of hatching. They seem to be 
quite confident in the forbearance of my boys, who have an inti- 
mate acquaintance with almost every nest in the neighbourhood 
of the house, the old bird allowing them to peer closely into her 
nest, and even to move aside the grass and herbage which conceal 
it, when they want to see if she is on her eggs. A retriever one 
day caught an old hen partridge on her nest, but let her go again 
on my rating him, without doing more damage to her than pulling 
out some feathers. Notwithstanding this she returned to the 
nest, and hatched the whole of the eggs the next day. Had she 
not been so near her time of hatching, I do not suppose that she 
would have returned again. All birds have the same instinctive 
foreknowledge of the time of hatching being near at hand, and 
do not, when this is the case, leave their nest so easily as when 
disturbed at an earlier period of incubation. Some small birds 
are much tamer in this respect than others. A bullfinch will 
often allow herself to be taken off her nest, and replaced again, 
without showing the least symptom of fear. Indeed, this bird if 
put into a cage with her nest of young ones will continue to feed 
them as readily as if her habitation was still in its original situa- 
tion. Blackbirds also are very unwilling. to fly off from their 
eggs. The common wren, on the contrary; immediately forsakes 
her nest if it is at all handled and examined before she has laid 
her eggs. She will abandon it if she merely observes people 
looking too closely at it; but when she has commenced to sit I 
have known her to be caught on her nest, and replaced, and still 
not forsake it. A small blue-headed tomtit formed her nest this_ 
year in a chink in my garden wall, and allowed the children to 
take out an egg to-examine it from underneath her, without 
leaving the nest.-In fact, instead of being frightened at the 
intrusion of their hands into her little warm, well-feathered 
domicile, she picked courageously at their fingers, hissing, and 
spluttering at them, and never seeming inclined to fly off 
When the young ones were hatched, the activity and _perse- 
verance of the old birds in providing them with caterpillars 
and blue-bottle flies were perfectly wonderful. They appeared 
to fly backwards and forwards to their young family every 
minute of the day, always bringing some insect in their 
bills. The good done by these little birds in destroying grubs 
