ORNITHOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 
341 
Westmoreland Gazette. One of Mr. Loudon’s correspondents, commenting on the 
circumstance, asks,— u Were the illustrious author of Zoonomia (Dr. Darwin) 
alive, what inference would he deduce from a fact such as this ? Must we not 
allow something more than instinct to account for it ?” I can well believe the 
truth of the above narration, having frequently heard of Pigeons and other birds 
flying through panes of glass and into rooms containing several persons, in order 
to escape from their merciless Accipitrine pursuers. One would think it were 
little better than passing from Scylla to Charybdis, or out of the frying-pan into 
the fire. But generous minds will in most cases enlist their sympathies on the 
side of persecuted innocence and helplessness, and hence the reasonableness of 
birds thus hunted. Whether the poor Pigeon or Fieldfare has a distinct idea that 
the Hawk will not venture into a dwelling-house, or near a “ lord of the creation,” 
or not, I must lhave your metaphysical and phrenological readers to determine. 
In a letter received from Mr. Neville Wood some time since, that gentleman 
stated that “ An accidental variety of the tame Duck, with feet webbed, and with 
a shortened upper mandible, is in the possession of the Zoological Society. These 
birds are supposed to be hybrids between Gallus domesticns and Anas boschas. 
Their internal structure exactly resembles that of the latter.” The cross between 
birds so extremely dissimilar as the Fowl and the Duck, and belonging, according 
to all systematists, to distinct orders, is very remarkable. What can Mr. Blyth 
make of this circumstance ? 
M. Montbeillard, the learned coadjutor of Buffon, informs us that about the 
end of April a female Canary-bird having laid an egg, it was taken away, and 
when replaced, three or four days afterwards, she devoured it. In two days more 
she laid another and sat on it, when two Chaffinch’s eggs were put under her, 
and she continued to sit, though she had broken her own. At the end of ten 
days the Chaffinch’s eggs were removed, and two newly-hatched Yellow Buntings 
were given her, which she reared very well. Afterwards she laid two eggs, of 
which she devoured one; and on the other being taken away, she continued to 
brood as if she had had eggs, when a Redbreast’s was given her, which she 
successfully hatched. Another hen Canary, having laid three eggs, broke them 
almost immediately; and substituting two eggs of another bird, she sat upon 
them, and also on three others which she afterwards laid. After this the same 
bird laid another egg, to which was added one of the Nuthatch, and then two 
others, with likewise a Linnet’s nest. She sat on all the eggs seven days; but 
preferring those of the strangers, she drew out her own successively on the three 
following days, with that of the Nuthatch, but hatched that of the Chaffinch. 
On the 15th of June a Cuckoo’s egg was placed under another Canary, along with 
three of her own ; but she successively devoured all these—the Cuckoo’s the last. 
These facts are very remarkable, since they prove that while the birds had % 
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