CHAPTER OF VARIETIES. 



101 



on the young- ones, though if she met her any where off the nest, she 

 used invariably to fight. The above fact seems to show a kind of 

 blindness in instinct. I have put green linnets and chaffinches, nearly 

 fledged, into canaries' nests, when their own young ones have been just 

 hatched, and they seem to have generally observed no difference, but 

 fed them and brought them up as their own. I, however, once put some 

 young whitethroats into a canary's nest, but she refused to feed them, 

 though they opened their mouths most importunately ; but these were 

 very nearly full-fledged birds, and of course looked very dissimilar to 

 young canaries. I once paired a couple of green linnets, and the hen 

 laid as many as six eggs : the cock, however, had so far lost his original 

 instinct, that one day, after the eggs had been sat upon for several 

 days, he went and turned the nest quite over and broke the eggs. I 

 also had a bullfinch who had two sets of eggs, but the cock broke them 

 in the same manner. I will conclude my remarks by an instance of 

 very early formed instinct : I once broke a chaffinch's egg, in which I 

 found a young one, with its stomach as yet in a fluid state ; it, however, 

 opened its mouth and swallowed some food which I gave it even at this 

 early period ; I tried to bring it to maturity under a canary, but it was 

 so fluid that it dried to the shell and died. 

 Stepney. 



CHAPTER OF VARIETIES. 



Effects of inundations on the haunts of small birds. — 

 In the month of August, 1829, the estate of Ballindalloch, in Banff- 

 shire, was among others a very great sufferer by the dreadful floods 

 which at that period devastated almost the whole of the north of Scot- 

 land. The house was surrounded with water for upwards of eighteen 

 hours ; and the garden, pleasure grounds, and parks, were all either de- 

 stroyed or very much injured. But what I think most surprising, in 

 connexion with this, was the almost total desertion of the smaller birds 

 which then took place, and was so remarkable as to attract the notice 

 of the most careless observers. 



Before this inundation, the chaffinches and house sparrows in par- 

 ticular, had become so numerous as to be a perfect pest, and nothing in 

 the garden was secure from their depredations. The latter of these birds 

 built in great numbers, not only in holes of the garden wall, and under 

 the eaves of the out-houses, but nestled also on the tops of some lofty 



