INTRODUCTION. 
xxviii 
Golden-crowned Thrush {Seiurus aurocapillus) makes a nest 
like an oven, erecting an arch over it so perfectly resem- 
bling the tussuck in which it is concealed that it is only dis- 
coverable by the emotion of the female when startled from its 
covert. 
The Butcher-bird is said to draw around him his feathered 
victims by treacherously imitating their notes. The Kingfisher 
of Europe is believed to allure his prey by displaying the 
brilliancy of his colors as he sits near some sequestered place 
on the margin of a rivulet ; the fish, attracted by the splen- 
dor of his fluttering and expanded wings, are detained while 
the wily fisher takes an unerring aim.^ The Erne, and our 
Bald Eagle, gain a great part of their subsistence by watching 
the success of the Fish Hawk, and robbing him of his finny prey 
as soon as it is caught. In the same way also the rapacious 
Burgomaster, or Glaucous Gull {Larus glaucus), of the North 
levies his .tribute of food from all the smaller species of his 
race, who, knowing his strength and ferocity, are seldom inclined 
to dispute his piratical claims. Several species of Cuckoo, and 
the Cow Troopial of America, habitually deposit their eggs in 
the nests of other small birds, to whose deceived affection are 
committed the preservation and rearing of the parasitic and 
vagrant brood. The instinctive arts of birds are numerous ; 
but treachery, like that which obtains in these parasitic species, 
is among the rarest expedients of nature in the feathered 
tribes, though not uncommon among some insect families. 
The art displayed by birds in the construction of their tem- 
porary habitations, or nests, is also deserving of passing 
attention. Among the Gallinaceous tribe, including our land 
domestic species, as well as the aquatic and wading kinds, 
scarcely any attempt at a nest is made. The birds which swarm 
along the sea-coast often deposit their eggs on the bare ground, 
sand, or slight depressions in shelving rocks ; governed alone 
by grosser wants, their mutual attachment is feeble or nugatory, 
and neither art nor instinct prompts attention to the construe- 
1 The bright feathers of this bird enter often successfully, with others, into 
the composition of the most attractive artificial flies employed by anglers. 
