NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
113 
a mother, is no longer that placid bird she used to be, but with feathers 
standing an end, wings hovering, and clocking note, she runs about like 
one possessed. Dams will throw themselves in the way of the greatest 
danger in order to avert it from their progeny. Thus a partridge will 
tumble along before a sportsman in order to draw away the dogs from 
her helpless covey. In the time of nidification the most feeble birds 
will assault the most rapacious. All the hirundines of a village are up 
in arms at the sight of an 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 clefts of the rocks to chase away the kestril, or 
the 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 farther corroborate what I have 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 Stoparola of Ray),* builds every 
year in the vines that grow on the walls of my house. A pair of these 
little birds had one year inadvertently placed their nest on a naked 
bough, perhaps in a shady time, not being aware of the inconvenience 
that followed. But an hot sunny season coming on before the brood 
was half fledged, the reflection of the wall became insupportable, and 
must inevitably have destroyed the tender young, had not affection 
suggested an expedient, and prompted the parent-birds to hover over the 
nest all the hotter hours, while with wings expanded, and mouths gaping 
for breath, they screened off the heat from their suffering offspring. 
A farther instance I once saw of notable sagacity in a willow-wren, 
which had built in a bank in my fields. This bird a friend and myself 
had observed as she sat in her nest ; but were particularly careful not 
to disturb her, though we saw 
she eyed us with some degree 
of jealousy. Some days after 
as we passed that way we were 
desirous of remarking how 
this brood went on ; but no 
nest could be found, till I 
happened to take up a large 
bundle of long green moss, as it 
were, carelessly thrown over the 
nest in order to dodge the eye 
of any impertinent intruder. 
A still more remarkable 
mixture of sagacity and in- 
stinct occurred to me one day 
as my people were pulling off the lining of an hotbed, in order 
, - * Muscicapa grisola. 
1 
SPOTTED FLYCATCHER. 
