Commit their feeble offspring: the cleft-tree
Offers its kind concealment to a few,

Their food its insects, and its moss their nests.

Others apart, far in the grassy dale,

Or roughening waste, their humble texture weave."

Some situations chosen by birds for their nests are very curious. Mr. White, of Selborne, mentions a swallow's nest on the handles of a pair of garden shears, stuck up against the boards of an outhouse and another on the wings and body of an owl that happened accidentally to hang dead and dry from the rafters of a barn. Mr. Jesse saw a swallow's nest built on the knocker of a gentleman's hall-door, and the parent bird sitting on her eggs. She succeeded too in her effort; and the young arrived at maturity.

The skylark selects her ground with care, avoiding clayey places, unless she can find two clods so placed as that no part of a nest between them would be below the surface. In more friable soils she scrapes till she has not only formed a little cavity, but loosened the bottom of it to some depth. Over this the first layers are placed very loosely, so that if any rain should get in at the top, it may sink to the bottom, and there be absorbed by the soil. The edges of the nest are also raised a little above the surface, have a slope outwards, and are, as it were, thatched. The position in which

the bird sits is a further security; the head is always turned to the weather, the feathers of the breast and throat completely prevent the rain from entering the nest at that side, while the wings and tail act as penthouses in the other parts; and if the weather is violent, and the rain at a small angle with the horizon, the fore-part of the bird, on which the plumage is thickest, receives the whole of it.

The site chosen by the window-swallow, or martin, is well known, but not so the skill and labour this bird puts forth. The crust of the nest is formed of such dirt or loam as is near, and is tempered and wrought together with small pieces of broken straw to render it tough and tenacious. Building, as it often does, against a perpendicular wall, without any projecting ledge under it, the bird requires its utmost effort to make the foundation secure; it therefore plasters well the materials into the face of the brick or stone, and by working only in the morning, gives the fabric, like a careful builder, sufficient time to dry and harden. Thus, in about ten or twelve days, it forms a domelike nest, with a small opening towards the top, strong, compact, and warm, and perfectly adapted to all its purposes when lined with small straws, grasses, or feathers, or perhaps with a bedding of moss inter

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woven with wool. When once a nest is completed in a sheltered place, it serves for several seasons.

Not less singular is the abode of the chimney swallow. Not that it can live in the shaft where there is a fire, but it prefers one adjoining that of the kitchen, utterly disregarding its smoke. The nest is formed five or six or more feet down the chimney, and consists of the same materials as those chosen by the window swallow. It differs, however, from the abode of the latter, by being open at the top, and like a halfdeep dish; this nest is often lined with fine grasses and feathers, collected as they float in the air. The address which this bird shows all day long in safely ascending and descending, is truly amazing. So strange a situation is probably chosen to secure the brood from rapacious birds, and particularly from owls, which frequently fall down chimneys, perhaps in attempting to get at these nestlings.

In some cases we are struck by instinct adapting itself to particular circumstances. Mr. Jesse mentions several cases of this kind. When, for instance, birds are obliged to be a longer time from their nests in search of food, they make much warmer nests than birds who can procure it more readily. Many aquatic birds, on this account, cover up their eggs with a pro

digious quantity of down and feathers to prevent their being chilled. In like manner the long-tailed titmouse, long absent from the largeness of her brood, consisting of from twelve to fifteen little ones, not only lines her nest with an abundance of the softest feathers and down, but makes it almost in the shape of a ball, with a small hole in the side to enter at, so that the young are quite secure from cold in their snug abode. In one case, a feather was observed placed over the opening of such a nest, to shut out the cold winds which prevailed at that time. On the contrary, the thrush, which readily procures worms on a neighbouring lawn or meadow, lines its nest frequently with clay.

The cuckoo makes no nest, but the female lays her eggs in the nests of other birds. Those of the hedgesparrow are usually selected; but those of the yellowhammer, the wagtail, and the tit-lark, or meadow-pipit, are not refused. One egg only is laid in each nest. When this is hatched, the young one is fed by the foster parent as though it were her own progeny, but it is to the destruction of her own brood.

The care of the poultry is now an interesting employment. The productiveness of the hen is truly astonishing, as, if allowed to go at liberty, well fed, and provided with a plentiful supply of water, it will

lay, in the course of a year, two hundred eggs. Some have been known greatly to exceed that number. Here is a kind provision for man, as the hen usually incubates only once a year. Warmth is favourable to the increase of eggs. The fowls kept by peasants in Ireland in their cabins, lay often in winter, from the warmth of their quarters; other cases might be mentioned in which the same cause produces the same result.

It is a curious fact, that hens which are the best layers are generally the worst sitters. The desire to sit becomes known from a peculiar kind of "cluck." The storge," as it is called, soon becomes strong and

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ungovernable.

The hen flutters about, hangs her

wings, bristles up her feathers, searches all about for