AND AMERICAN RURAL SPORTS. 
269 
When they have been kept alive, and fed for some time 
on corn and buckwheat, their flesh acquires great supe- 
riority; but in their common state they are dry and black- 
ish, and far inferior to the full grown young ones, or 
squabs. 
The young, when beginning to fly, confine themselves 
to the under part of the tall woods where there is no 
brush, and where nuts and acorns are abundant, searching 
among the leaves for mast, and appear like a prodigious 
torrent rolling along through the woods, every one striv- 
ing to be in the front. Vast numbers of them are shot 
while in this situation. A person told me, that he once 
rode furiously into one of these rolling multitudes, and 
picked up thirteen Pigeons, which had been trampled to 
death by his horse’s feet. In a few minutes they will beat 
the whole nuts from a tree with their wings; while all 
is scramble, both above and below, for the same. They 
have the same cooing notes common to domestic Pigeons; 
but much less of their gesticulations. In some flocks you 
will find nothing but young ones, which are easily distin- 
guishable Hby their motley dress. In others they will be 
mostly females; and again great multitudes of males, with 
few or no females. 1 cannot account for this in any other 
way than that during the time of incubation the males are 
exclusively engaged in procuring food, both for them- 
selves and their mates; and the young being unable yet 
to undertake these extensive excursions, associate to- 
gether accordingly. But even in winter I know of seve- 
ral species of birds who separate in this manner, particu- 
larly the Red-winged Starling, among whom thousands 
of old males may be found, with few or no young, or 
females along with them. — Wilson. 
BUILDING A NEST. 
The romantic, though accurate naturalist, Vaillant, 
has given, in his “ Oiseaux d’Afrique,” the following 
lively narrative of the proceedings of a pair of small Afri- 
can birds in the construction of a nest. He had con- 
trived, by tempting tit-bits, to render the species alluded 
to, which he calls the Capocier, so familiar, that a pair 
of these birds regularly entered his tent several times a 
day, and even seemed to recognise him in the adjacent 
thickets as he passed along. “ The breeding season,” he 
goes on, “had no sooner arrived, than I perceived the 
visits of my two little guests to become less frequent, 
though, whether they sought solitude the better to mature 
their plans, or whether, as the rains had ceased and insects 
became so abundant that my tit-bits were less relished, I 
X x x 
cannot tell, but they seldom made their appearance for 
four or five successive days, after which they unexpected- 
ly returned, and it was not long before I discovered the 
motives that had brought them back. During their for- 
mer visits they had not failed to observe the cotton, moss, 
and flax which I used to stuff my birds with, and which 
were always lying upon my table. Finding it, no doubt, 
much more convenient to come and furnish themselves 
with these articles there than to go and pick the down 
from the branches of plants, I saw them carry away in 
their beaks parcels of these, much larger in bulk than 
themselves. 
“Having followed and watched them, I found the place 
which they had selected for constructing the cradle which 
should contain their infant progeny. In a corner of a re- 
tired and neglected garden, there grew, by the side of a 
small spring beneath the shelter of the only tree which 
ornamented that retreat, a high plant, called by the colo- 
nists of the Cape, Capoc-bosche. In this shrub they had 
already laid a part of the foundation with moss, the fork 
of the branches chosen for the reception of the nest being 
already bedded therewith. The first materials were laid 
on the 11th of October. The second day’s labour pre- 
sented a rude mass, about four inches in thickness, and 
from five to six inches in diameter. This was the founda- 
tion of the nest, which was composed of moss and flax, in- 
terwoven with grass and tufts of cotton. 
“ I passed the whole of the second day by the side of 
the nest, which the female never quitted from the mo- 
ment my windows were opened in the morning till near- 
ly ten o’clock, and from five o’clock in the evening till 
seven. On the morning of the 12th, the male made 
twenty-nine journies to my room, and in the evening only 
seventeen. He gave great assistance to the female in 
trampling down and pressing the cotton with his body, in 
order to make it into a sort of felt-work. 
“ When the male arrived with parcels of moss and cot- 
ton, he deposited his load either on the edge of the nest, 
or upon branches within the reach of the female. He 
made four or five trips of this kind without interruption, 
and then set about helping his mate in the execution of her 
work. 
“ This agreeable occupation was often interrupted by 
innocent and playful gambols, though the female appear- 
ed to be so actively and anxiously employed about her 
building, as to have less relish for trifling than the male; 
and she even punished him for his frolics by pecking him 
well with her beak. He, on the other hand, fought m 
his turn, pecked, pulled down the work which they had 
done, prevented the female from continuing her labours, 
and, in a word, seemed to tell her, ‘You refuse to be my 
