crust of the nest is a sort of rustic-work full of knobs 

 and protuberances on the outside : nor is the inside 

 of those that I have examined smoothed with any 

 exactness at all ; but is rendered soft and warm, and 

 fit for incubation, by a lining of small straws, grasses, 

 and feathers : and sometimes by a bed of moss inter- 

 woven with wool. In this nest they tread, or engen- 

 der, frequently during the time of building ; and the 

 hen lays from three to five white eggs. 



At first when the young are hatched, and are in a 

 naked and helpless condition, the parent birds, with 

 tender assiduity, carry out what comes away from 

 their young. Were it not for this affectionate clean- 

 liness the nestlings would soon be burnt up, and de- 

 stroyed in so deep and hollow a nest, by their own 

 caustic excrement. In the quadruped creation the 

 same neat precaution is made use of ; particularly 

 among dogs and cats, where the dams lick away what 

 proceeds from their young. But in birds there seems 

 to be a particular provision, that the dung of nest- 

 lings is enveloped in a tough kind of jelly, and there- 

 fore is the easier conveyed off without soiling or 

 daubing. Yet, as Nature is cleanly in all her ways, 

 the young perform this office for themselves in a 

 little time by thrusting their tails out at the aperture 

 of their nest. As the young of small birds presently 

 arrive at their r]\iKia, or full growth, they soon be- 

 come impatient of confinement, and sit all day with 



their heads out of the orifice, where the dams, by 



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