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CHAPTER OF VARIETIES. 



will, when placed in my hand, sit as if on a nest ; and after affectionately 

 caressing me, will close his eyes, and fall asleep, evidently proving his 

 extreme comfort. The canary bird, on the contrary, though for three 

 years he has had precisely similar treatment, (I have only had the, gold- 

 finch two years,) cannot be rendered at all tame or docile, though he 

 was hatched in our room, and though he has been fondled and petted to 

 endeavour to make him amiable ; but all in vain has been every effort 

 to subdue his cross nature ; he flies at my fingers if I touch the cage, 

 and if food is offered to the little tyrant, he ruffles his feathers, and 

 evinces by every possible sign that attentions are not acceptable to him. 

 Now is it not singular that two such tiny creatures should possess such 

 widely different tempers ? One cannot be tamed, and the good-nature 

 of the other has triumphed over every disadvantage of wildness, and 

 subsequent imprisonment, when in fact he might have been forgiven, 

 had he pined for that liberty which he seems entirely to have forgotten. 

 I know that many would think the above a trifling statement, and would 

 reprove me for sending it to such a work as yours ; but I am of 

 opinion that nothing is frivolous or trivial that portrays the manners 

 or rather habits of animals, and that nothing concerning them is wholly 

 uninteresting to the naturalist — to him who looks from " Nature up to 

 Nature's God," and who finds " sermons in stones, and good in every 

 thing." — Miss Hunter. 



18, Bicton Place, Exmouth, Devon. 



On the nuthatch and other birds. — As I was passing through 

 Kensington Gardens on the 5th of April, and listening to the notes of 

 the tits, of which there are great numbers, particularly of the oxeye and 

 tomtit, I was struck with the singular appearance of a bird which was 

 hanging to the trunk of a tree, and which I at first mistook for an oxeye, 

 but after noticing it for some time, on its turning round, I saw by its 

 buff-coloured breast and grey back, that it was the nuthatch, which I 

 had always understood to be rather scarce, and only to be met with in 

 the secluded parts of the country. Upon finding this I concealed my- 

 self behind a tree, and observed its motions. It climbed up the tree 

 in an odd shuffling manner, frequently passing round the trunk, and 

 thrusting its bill into the crevices, while every now and then a large 

 piece of bark fell. After some time it flew to another tree, and I then 

 saw another nuthatch moving up the trees in a similar manner. It 

 seldom descended ; but on reaching the top flew off to another tree. 

 I did not hear either of them utter any sound. 



