138 
THE NATURAL HISTORY 
[LETT. 
birds will assault the most rapacious. All the liirundines of a 
village are up in arms at the sight of a hawk, whom they will 
persecute till he leaves that district. A very exact observer 
has often remarked that a pair of ravens nesting in the rock 
of Gibraltar would suffer no vulture or eagle to rest near their 
station, but would drive them from the hill with an amazing 
fury : even the blue thrush at the season of breeding would dart 
out from the cliffs of the rocks to chase away the kestrel or the 
PIF.D FX,yCATCHER. 
sparrow-hawk. If you stand near the nest of a bird that has 
young, she will not be induced to betray them by an inadvertent 
fondness, but will wait about at a distance with meat in her 
mouth for an hour together. 
Should I further corroborate what I liave advanced above by 
some anecdotes which I probably may have mentioned before 
in conversation, yet you will, I trust, pardon the repetition for 
the sake of the illustration. 
The flycatcher of the Zoology (the Stojmrola of Eay) builds 
every year in the vines that grow on the walls of my house. 
