familiar one in reference to the fond dalliance 

 of happy pairs. 



The great difference in the hatching of insect 

 eggs, contrasted with those of birds, as well as 

 the nature of the wants of young birds and the 

 means of supplying them, compared with the 

 offspring of quadrupeds, abundantly account for 

 the fidelity to the parental duties thus peculiarly 

 manifested by birds. The labor of building the 

 nest requires the conjoint aid of the male and 

 female ; and when this ingenious structure has 

 been completed, and the eggs disposed on its 

 soft lining, they would, in most cases, perish 

 were the female unrelieved in brooding. 



But it is not a mere share of labor that is un- 

 dertaken by the feathered pair; the affectionate 

 interchange of attention is manifested in the 

 most engaging ways. Sometimes the male is 

 seen to bring food to the brooding hen ; at other 

 times he perches himself on a neighboring bough, 

 and solaces her with his most cheerful and sweetest 

 notes. Then he will take her place and con- 

 tinue the maternal duties, while she roams 

 abroad for a short time in search of needful food 

 and exercise. 



The perseverance and instinctive ingenuity of 

 birds in the building of their nests, is truly ad- 

 mirable. Among familiar instances of the in- 

 genuity of the feathered tribe, the nest of the 

 song-thrush is well deserving of selection. The 

 parent birds, having selected a convenient spot 

 on the branch of a tree, proceed to lay their 

 foundation with moss or fine fern. Into this 

 they weave grass and straw, or root -fibres, 

 twining them together, and interlacing the raised 

 sides like a piece of basket-work. The interior 

 is then shaped by the breast of the animal into a 

 neat and uniform hollow, not unlike a breakfast 

 tea-cup, and by means of a cement, composed 

 chiefly of decayed wood, mixed with their own 

 saliva, the whole is cemented internally, so as to 

 be perfectly smooth and water-tight, and as re- 

 gular as if finished on a turning lathe. In this 

 dry and hard bowl the eggs are laid, without 

 any softer lining ; so that, when the nest is has- 

 tily moved, or shaken by the wind in the absence 

 of the parent birds, the eggs may be heard to 

 rattle on the sides. The song-thrush displays 

 considerable diversity of taste in the choice of a 

 place for building its nest, choosing sometimes 

 a tall fir-tree, at others a holly or hawthorn bush, 

 and sometimes even a furze bush, or the tall 

 grass on a raised fence. It has also been ob- 

 served, in some few instances, to build in an 

 ivied wall, or in an outhouse. 



A very great diversity is apparent in the 

 choice of materials for the nests even of our 

 commonest native birds ; so that the naturalist 

 can tell by the nest, as readily as by the eggs, the 

 character of the little builders. Grahame, the 

 Scottish poet, gives interesting and minute de- 

 scriptions of these in his " Birds of Scotland." 

 The yellow-hammer, for example, a bird common 

 in Scotland, combines in its ingenious process 

 of nest-building the basket-work of interweaved 

 roots and grass for the exterior, and the felting 

 with soft moss, hair, and wool in the inside. The 

 usual site of its nest is in the hedge-row, or in 

 some low bush; but it also frequently builds 

 among tufts of reeds, or in the mossy clumps 



on the broken banks of a stream. The poet thus 

 refers to its native habits in the spring: — 



" Up from the ford, a little bank there was, 

 With alder-copse and willow overgrown, 

 Now worn away by mining winter floods ; 

 There, at a bramble root, sunk in the grass, 

 The hidden prize, of withered field straws 



formed, 

 Well lined with many a coil of hair and moss, 

 And in it laid five red-veined eggs, I found," 



Were we to examine the ingenious arts of the 

 nest-builders of various countries, we should find 

 a theme of interest which would require volumes 

 to exhaust it. The instincts by which insects 

 provide for the safety of their progeny, are in no 

 degree more remarkable than those of the fea- 

 thered tribes. 



The tailor-bird of Hindostan, for example, 

 gathers cotton from the shrubs, spins it to a 

 thread by means of its feet and long bill, and 

 then employing its bill as an awl, it sews the 

 large leaves of an Indian tree together so as to 

 protect and conceal its young. Cotton, as an 

 article of manufacture, is quite of modern intro- 

 duction to Europe; yet long before the capa- 

 bilities of this invaluable plant had been dis- 

 covered by us, the instinct of this little bird had 

 guided it to its use, and the cotton thread was 

 annually employed in the completion of its nest. 



The remarkable structures reared by the soci- 

 able grosbeak must be familiar to most readers, 

 from the numerous engravings of them which, 

 exist. They appear like a great bird-city, 

 having many approaches, each with the nests 

 constructed under the caves, as in a covered pas- 

 sage, neatly built, of what is called the Bosh- 

 man's Grass, so firmly basketed together as to 

 be impervious to rain. 



Another species, the pensile grosbeak, suspends 

 its curious pendant nest from the end of the 

 branch of a tree; generally over water, and with 

 the entrance by means of a long cylindrical 

 passage from below. The little builder is only 

 about the size of our common sparrow, yet this 

 pendant passage to its nest frequently measures 

 fifteen inches long. 



Another remarkable example of a similar 

 class of nests, is furnished by the Indian toddy- 

 bird, or baya, thus described by Forbes : — " The 

 baya, or bottle-nested sparrow, is remarkable for 

 its pendant nest, brilliant plumage, and uncom- 

 mon sagacity. These birds are found in most 

 parts of Hindostan ; in shape they resemble the 

 sparrow, as also in the brown feathers of the back 

 and wings ; the head and breast of a bright yel- 

 low, and in the rays of a tropical sun have a 

 splendid appearance, when flying by thousands 

 in the same grove ; they make a chirping noise, 

 but have no song ; they associate in large 

 communities, and cover extensive clumps of pal- 

 myras, acacias, and date-trees with their nests. 

 These are formed, in a very ingenious manner 

 by long grass woven together in the shape of a 

 bottle, and suspended by the other end to the ex- 

 tremity of a flexible branch, the more effectually to 

 secure the eggs and young brood from serpents, 

 monkeys, squirrels, and birds of prey. These 

 nests contain several apartments, appropriated 

 to different purposes: in one, the hen performs 



