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companionship that nature seems to have established between them. Country children, and those 

 who seek for nests in the environs of Paris, are aware of the fact that the Missel-Thrush and the 

 Chaffinch nest in company. Should there be on one tree the nest of a Missel-Thrush, on the 

 same tree or on the nearest there will be found at the same time the nest of a Chaffinch. This 

 reciprocity does not always take place, because in spring in our neighbourhood there are many 

 more Chaffinches than Missel-Thrushes, so that the nests of the former are often found by them- 

 selves, but as far as concerns myself personally, I have never found the nest of the Missel-Thrush 

 without seeing at the same time that of the Chaffinch, or at least, as I thought, with one excep- 

 tion, three or four years ago. I had found on an isolated apple-tree the nest of a Missel-Thrush, 

 and sought in vain for its companion, the Chaffinch, till at last an old companion, who had never 

 swerved from his belief in their association, accused me of not looking in the right place ; and 

 what followed showed that he was correct ; for in a new search that we made we found the 

 Chaffinch's nest on the same tree, and at only three metres from the other one ; but it was closely 

 concealed in the branch of a mistletoe that grew there. I sought for a long time the reason of so 

 strange an association between two birds differing so much from one another in size and constitu- 

 tion, till a recent observation appeared to give the key to the mystery. On going into the 

 country on the 1st of May I found just in front of my window the nest of a Missel-Thrush on an 

 elm, and that of a Chaffinch on an acacia, and the birds were only distant five or six metres from 

 one another, and both were sitting. Now the Magpies are very numerous in the vicinity ; but 

 the moment that one of them approached the elm, the Chaffinch would utter a sharp cry, causing 

 the Missel-Thrush to dart like an arrow on the intruder, the latter bird often losing some feathers 

 in the shock, and being glad to seek safety in flight. Each time that a Magpie approached the 

 tree the Chaffinch uttered the same cry, and the scene was renewed with the same result. Two 

 years before that, the companions had nested on the same elm tree ; but some boy had robbed the 

 domicile of the Chaffinch, and the next day a prowling Magpie had carried away the young ones 

 of the Missel-Thrush, and had let them fall to the ground. The Missel-Thrush and the Chaffinch 

 begin breeding about the end of March, shortly after the Magpie, and generally a month before 

 other Passeres commence building their nests on the trees. Their nests are so firmly fixed to the 

 branches, and appear so much to form part and parcel of the tree, that they are difficult to be 

 perceived from the ground, but as yet there are not sufficient leaves to conceal them from the 

 keen eye of a bird sailing above them. In April and May the Magpie has its young ones to 

 feed, and it appears to seek very eagerly for the unfledged young of other birds. Amongst the 

 Passeres which build on the ground or in holes, some are now rearing their little ones ; but their 

 nests are generally well concealed or nearly inaccessible. Missel-Thrushes and Chaffinches 

 would be thus exposed to the constant attacks of the Magpies in search of food for their young, 

 if nature had not given them these means of warding off attacks by combining courage with 

 constant vigilance. The Chaffinch, according to the testimony of many naturalists, appears to be 

 one of the first in France to salute the dawn ; thus it is enabled to give the earliest intimation of 

 the approach of an enemy, and to call the attention of its companion, whilst, on the other hand, 

 the Missel-Thrush vigorously attacks the intruder and puts it to flight. Now does this associa- 

 tion of the two birds, especially remarked in the neighbourhood of Paris, where Magpies are rare, 

 exist all over France, or, for instance, on the borders of the Channel 1 I cannot answer the 



