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INTUODQCTIOX. 
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Woodlark, and the Bulfinch, associate together, with their young ones, 
and form the little family flocks which are so common in the autumnal 
season, and which separate only when impelled by hunger, or when 
they feel the impulsive call of the soft passion of love. 
It is obvious, that those birds which are hatched and taught 
taught to provide for themselves earliest in the spring, are more strong 
and vigorous, as they are older, and of course more experienced, and better 
able to maintain themselves, than those of later broods. Many individuals 
continue their incubation to a late period ; robbed of their former nests 
their efforts are repeated to raise a progeny. Numerous species have 
commonly two broods, as the Robin, the Yellow Bunting, the White 
Owl, the Red-backed Butcherbird, and the Wagtail,^’ and some, as the 
Wood Pigeon, are supposed to have even three, within the year; but if 
the egg be withdrawn the female of many species will continue to lay 
beyond the usual number. It is, therefore, probable, that though the eggs 
in the ovary do not in the spring appear in a state to be produced, yet 
a few days will bring them to maturity if the female endeavours to exclude 
them ; and that the number laid in a season in some degree depends 
upon the inclination of the individual.^ It is well known, that if a 
I have known many birds to have two broods in the year. I mention this because some 
naturalists have doubted the fact. The Robin, the red-backed Butcherbird, the Sparrow, the 
Yellow-Bunting, the Wood Pigeon, the White Owl, the Greenfinch, commonly breed twice in a 
year. 
** Four pairs of red-backed Butcherbirds built within a short distance of the town of Ash- 
burton, in the year I8O7. Although I had frequently tried to discover whether the same bird 
would again build and deposit eggs, if deprived of jt« nest, and had been fully satisfied by the 
result of numerous experiments ; yet, as these birds are not very common in Devon, I was 
determined to repeat the trial on them. I took out one of their nests with five eggs in it, which 
was built in a large thorn, and in eight days it had erected another in a bramble, contiguous to 
the thorn, and laid three eggs. I took away the second nest, and in ten days more it had rebuilt 
a new habitation, a few feet from the situation of its former one, and laid four other eggs. I then 
suffered it to sit a brood, and endeavoured to conceal it, but it was so artlessly placed, that it was 
shortly afterwards discovered, and taken away. Another pair built adjoining my house. O’ 
the third of June, IS07, Jive eggs were in the nest, which I broke out, leaving behind a small 
