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the birds did not continue to build for fb many years as in the pre- 

 ceding inftance. 



The following fact relates to a fwallow which built for two 

 years together on the handles of a pair of garden fheers, that 

 were ftuck up againft the boards in an outhoufe.; and, what is 

 ftranger ftill, another bird of the fame fpecies made its neft on the 

 wings and body of an owl that happened by accident to hang 

 dead, and dry, from the rafter of a barn. This owl, with the 

 neft on its wings and eggs, was brought to Sir Amton Lever, who 

 defired the perfon that furnifhed him with this curiofity to fix a 

 large fhell where the body of the owl had hung. The perfon did as 

 he was ordered, and the following year a neft was made and eggs 

 laid in the fhell by a pair of fwailows c . 



Now it is clear, from thefe well-attefted inftances, that both mar- 

 tins and fwailows choofe to build, for a fucceffion of years, in the 

 fame place d , though an inconvenient one, and is it to be fup- 



c The neft, eggs., and fhell, are now „alfo to "be fecn iivSir Afhton 

 JLever's Mufeum. 



d Kalm, in his account of N. America, informs us, that .Dr. Frank- 

 lin's father lived near two rivers," in the one of which herrings conftantly 

 were obferved, but not in the other. Mr. .Franklin therefore made aa 

 experiment, by removing fome ot the fpawn., which occafioning a breed 

 in the lecond river, herrings were afterwards obferved at the proper 

 feafon, as frequently as in the other, the grown herrings depofiting 

 their fpawn where they had been hatched themfeJves. Kalm, vol. I. 

 p. 294. This fact feems to prove that full, as well as birds, always 

 breed in the fame places,; and it may be therefore afked why a bird ever 

 builds a new neft. To this I anlwer, that the materials of fome are 

 deftroyed by the winter ; but where they are not thus rendered ufelefs, 

 and are out of the reach of man, it is commonly obferved that the 

 fame neft, with fome trifling repairs, ferves for feveral years. Witnefs 

 thofe of herons, kites, and rooks, all of which I have fee.11 in the fame 

 field at Sir Nicholas Baily's, in the iflaad of Anglefey, and which were 

 conftantly upon the fame trees. 



pofc^d 



