Bishop Huntley' s Anecdote. 49 



here in our picture ; for our friend, Mr. Harrison Weir, always 

 faithful in his transcripts of nature, has an eye, also, for beauty. 



Round the nest, as you see, blossoms the yellow furze, and 

 round it too rises a chevaux de /rise of furze spines, green and 

 tender to look at, but sharp as needles. Yes, hereon this furzy 

 common, and on hundreds of others all over this happy land, 

 and on hill sides, with the snowy hawthorn and the pink-blos- 

 somed crab-tree above them, and, below, the mossy banks 

 gemmed with pale-yellow primroses, are thousands of linnet 

 nests and father-linnets, singing for very joy of life and spring, 

 and for the summer which is before them. And as they sing, 

 the man ploughing in the fields hard-by, and the little lad lead- 

 ing the horses, hear the song, and though he may say nothing 

 about it, the man thinks, and wonders that the birds sing just 

 as sweetly now as when he was young ; and the lad thinks how 

 pleasant it is, forgetting the while that he is tired, and, whist- 

 ling something like a linnet-tune, impresses it on his memory, 

 to be recalled with a tender sentiment years hence when he is a 

 man, toiling perhaps in Australia or Canada ; or, it may be, to 

 speak to him like a guardian angel in some time of trial or 

 temptation, and bring him back to the innocence of boyhood 

 and to his God. 



Our picture shows us the fledgeling brood of the linnet, and 

 the parent-bird feeding them. The attachment of this bird to 

 its young is very great. Bishop Huntley, in his " History of 

 Birds," gives us the following anecdote in proof of it:- — ■ 



" A linnet's nest, containing four young ones, was found by 

 some children, and carried home with the intention of rearing 

 and taming them. The old ones, attracted by their chirping, 



