xlviii 
INTRODUCTION. 
to sit on them until the v are reduced to a state of debility and inanition: 
blit the Yellow Bunting, that in common is so tame and familiar, will rarely 
return to its nest when once rudely driven from it.®® Truly wonderful is the 
art which the hen displays : she turns her eggs with unwearied assiduity ; 
she leaves them, when the warmth of the body has engendered too great 
a degree of heat, and she watches them with extreme anxiety until they 
are properly cooled ; — and of some species, such as the Duck, and the 
Water Rail, the female, when she quits them, covers them with rushes. 
In our climate, one pair alone joins in nidification and incubation. 
The long-tailed Titmouse is the only exception, with which we have 
ever met.^^ Two pairs of these birds had united to share the toils and 
pleasures, of raising and supporting their mutual progeny. In these 
pleasures, the male of most species seems to participate, from his apparent 
transports and anxiety. Among the smaller tribes, the female’s domestic 
care is soothed by his tenderness, caresses, and song. And in such as the 
Ovv^l kind, the Nuthatch, the Woodpeckers, the Robin, the Chaffinch, and 
the Greenfinch, and most of the Sparrow tribe, the female, after she 
has engaged a few days in the business of incubation,®” obtains a great part 
of her subsistence from his labours. She leaves her eggs only when disturbed, 
or when the pressing calls of hunger compel her : and most frequently 
in the incipiency of incubation ; as the period of the birth of her young 
I have seen tlie male Yellow Bunting in the nest, even before the number of eggs usually 
laid by its female is deposited ; and I have frequently, towards evening, found many of the smaller 
tribes seated on their eggs, before the period of incubation bad arrived. 
In the year 179S, the Author, in taking a walk with a friend, discovered a long-tailed 
Titmouse’s nest, in which were thirteen eggs, and on which were then sitting three old birds; the 
fourth was seated in a neighbouring bush. 
The white Owl has frequently young ones in one nest, and eggs in another close adjoining ; 
in that case the male principally feeds the young: and I have been assured, by a person on whose 
veracity I can rely, that he knew a pair of white Owls which had, at the same time, two young 
ones full fledged, two just hatched, and two eggs in a third nest, within the same barn. 
