496 THE ZOOLOGIST. 
produce a certain number of offspring each year, but also to 
bring a certain number to maturity. Take the case of acat. A 
female may be perpetually running with a male. You drown‘her 
kittens; yet she does not again kitten for six months or so. Com- 
pare her with a Nightingale. Harry a Nightingale’s nest when 
the fledglings are nearly ready to fly. The bird does not sit 
down and ejaculate ‘‘ Kismet,” and feebly await the period of 
migration. She feels desolate without her young ones around 
her; she knows she has a duty to fulfil, and that the time is 
short. She begins to bustle about, and in a week she will have 
started laying again in a safer spot. In a dell at Clifton there 
were two pairs of Nightingales. Some deadly person of the 
rabid collector type took each clutch as it was laid, and again he 
did the same with the second clutches; but the faithful birds 
each nested a third time, and met with success at last. 
There are further a few rules which are useful, and which I 
must endeavour to state more briefly :— 
(1). The object of the breeding season is to. maintain the 
numbers of each species at an equable level (not neces- 
sarily to increase them, though this is sometimes the 
case). 
(2). By August the numbers of each species are probably 
treble what they were in April. 
(3). ‘These numbers are subsequently curtailed :— 
(a). In the case of migratory species, many succumb to the 
hardships and dangers of the passage. 
(>). In the case of resident species, many succumb to cold 
and lack of suitable food during the winter months. 
(c). Every species alike is liable to losses through accident, 
from carnivorous birds, and at the hands of the col- 
lector, gamekeeper, and other misguided people. These 
losses, however, cannot compare with (a) and (0). 
I will now attempt to treat of the various species more or less — 
in detail. 
1. Fincuss, Prierts, Buntines, and LarGER WaARBLERS (such 
as the Nightingale, Blackcap, &c.).— Throughout the country 
five eggs is the usual number for all these birds to lay ina clutch. 
The migratory species in the majority of instances probably 
confine themselves to one brood, while nearly all the Finches 
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