8030 



Birds. 



but design. What then can have been the motive in the builders 

 of the nest in introducing so awkward a central pillar ? Could it be 

 (when the nest was not placed on the ground, as 1 believe is the more 

 ordinary custom of the bird) in order to strengthen and consolidate so 

 fragile a cradle, as a mast, to which the fibres should be tied ? Yet 

 no other bird, as far as I know, finds such support needful, or is in the 

 habit of adopting so clumsy a device. 



I at once sought for an explanation of this singular fancy in the 

 pages of Hewitson, Yarrell, Selby, Bewick, and other standard works 

 which I have at hand on the nesting of birds, but I do not find the 

 projecting thorn alluded to by any of them ; and yet, on farther investi- 

 gation, the fact elicited by the observation of my informant, had been 

 (though totally unknown to him) recorded by some of our poets from 

 the sixteenth century. Thus I find Shakspeare, with that wonderful 

 accuracy with which he delineates every subject he handles, and not 

 the least so when he touches on Natural History, singing in the sonnet 

 of the " Passionate Pilgrim," 



" Every thing did banish moan, 

 Save the nightingale alone; 

 She, poor, bird, as all forlorn, 

 Lean'd her breast up-till a thorn, 

 And there sung the dolefull'st ditty, 

 That to hear it was great pity." 



And, again, in the " Poem of Lucrece," 



"And whiles against a thorn thou bear'st thy part 

 To keep thy sharp woes waking." 



Again, Giles Fletcher, who wrote in the early part of the seventeenth 

 century, says : — 



" Tell me, sad Philomel, that yonder sit'st, 

 Piping thy songs unto the dancing twig, 

 And to the water-fall thy music fil'st. 

 , So let the friendly prickle never dig 

 Thy watchful breast, with wound or small or big, 

 Whereon thou leanst." 



And again, 



" The bird forlorn 

 That singeth with her breast against a thorn. 



And Pomfret, a. d. 1667—1703, 



