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ing the south-east, was visible one hundred yards off, though shaded by the sun, and was the work of a very beautiful and perfect bird. The eggs are five, white, slightly tinged with flesh-colour, marked on the greater end with purple dots, and on the other parts with long hair-like lines, intersecting each other in a variety of directions. I am thus minute in these particulars from a wish to point out the specific difference between the true and bastard Baltimore, which Dr. Latham and some others suspect to be only the same bird in different stages of colour.

[graphic]

Baltimore Starling (Icterus Baltimore) and Nest.

"So solicitous is the Baltimore to procure proper materials for his nest, that, in the season of building,

that we have ever observed; for instead of flying or hiding from danger, the alarm-call seems to embolden even the most timid to run every hazard; and accordingly, it is matter of common observation that whenever a hawk makes his appearance, the first swallow which descries him, sounds the tocsin, when not only all the swallows in the vicinity muster their forces, but many other small birds hurry to the spot, and so far from sculking away out of danger, they boldly face their powerful foe, attacking him fearlessly with beak and wing, till some individual pays the penalty of his temerity. With this exception we can bear testimony to the description of Mr. Knapp being minutely correct. "Some," he adds, give the maternal hush to their young, and mount to inquire into the jeopardy announced. The wren, that tells of perils from the hedge, soon collects about her all the various inquisitive species within hearing to survey and ascertain the object and add their separate fears. The swallow, that shrieking darts in devious flight through the air when a hawk appears, not only calls up all the hirundines of the village, but is instantly understood by every finch and sparrow, and its warning attended to *.”

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Dr. Darwin, in his usual ingenious but fanciful manner, endeavours to show that this language of fear and alarm is (like other sounds usually considered natural) acquired and conventional like human speech. His facts will amuse the reader, while his inferences must appear quite hypothetical and strained. "All other animals," he says, "as well as man, are possessed of the natural language of the passions, expressed in signs or tones; and we shall endeavour to evince, that those animals which have preserved themselves from being enslaved by mankind, and are associated in flocks, are also possessed of some * Journ. of a Naturalist, p. 268, third edit.

to guide the darkling flight of the male to his home; which popular belief, adopted even by the best naturalists, must give way to the fact, first ascertained by De Geer, that the larva of the glow-worm (which cannot propagate) exhibits the same light. The nest of the Indian sparrow (Loxia Bengalensis ?) is thus described, and its illumination explained, by Sir William Jones:

"This bird is exceedingly common in Hindoostan ; he is astonishingly sensible, faithful, and docile, never voluntarily deserting the place where his young are hatched, but not averse, like most other birds, to the society of mankind, and easily taught to perch on the hand of his master. In a state of nature he generally builds his nest on the highest tree he can find, especially on the Palmyra, or on the Indian fig-tree, and he prefers that which happens to overhang a well or a rivulet: he makes it of grass, which he weaves like cloth, and shapes like a bottle, suspending it firmly on the branches, but so as to rock with the wind, and placing it with its entrance downward to secure it from the birds of prey. His nest usually consists of two or three chambers, and it is popularly believed that he lights them with fire-flies, which he is said to catch alive at night, and confine with moist clay, or with cow-dung. That such flies are often found in his nest, where pieces of cow-dung are also stuck, is indubitable; but, as their light could be of little use to him, it seems probable that he only feeds on them. He may be taught with ease to fetch a piece of paper, or any small matter, that his master points out to him. It is an attested fact, that if a ring be dropped into a deep well, and a signal be given to him, he will fly down with amazing celerity, catch the ring before it touches the water, and bring it up to his master with apparent exultation: and it is confidently asserted, that if a house, or any other place, be shewn to him

once or twice, he will carry a note thither immediately, on a proper signal being made. The young Hindoo women at Benares, and in other places, wear very thin plates of gold, called ticas, slightly fixed, by way of ornament, between their eyebrows, and when they pass through the streets it is not uncommon for the youthful libertines, who amuse themselves with training these birds, to give them a signal which they understand, and send them to pluck the pieces of gold from the foreheads of their mistresses, which they bring in triumph to their lovers."

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It is not improbable, however, that some of these feats have received a colouring from oriental imagination. The separate chambers of the nest, also, may possibly be accounted for, as Vaillant has most satisfactorily done respecting the perch of the pincpinc *. We have, however, received the following account from a gentleman, long resident in India, whose testimony in favour of the popular opinion that the loxia uses glow-worms to light up its nest, and makes separate chambers in its dwelling, is so strong, that we cannot refuse to place it before our readers: Desiring to ascertain the truth of the current belief that the bird employs the glow-worm for the purpose of illuminating its nest, I adopted the following method. Taking advantage of the absence of the birds, about four o'clock in the afternoon, I directed a servant to prevent their return, while I examined their nest; which I cut open, and found in it a full sized glow-worm, fastened to the inside with what is in India called morum, a peculiarly binding sort of clay. Having sewn up the division, I replaced the nest; which, on the following evening I again examined, and found another smaller sized glow-worm, with fresh clay, a little on one side of the former spot. I subsequently tried the experiment *See our chapter on Felt-making birds.

on three other nests, in two of which the same results were elicited, and in the third the fresh clay was fixed, but no glow-worm. That the insect is placed in the nest as food, is, I think, rendered extremely doubtful, by the fact of its being fixed in the clay, a useless labour for that purpose; and from the little likelihood there is that a bird, which, as I believe, never quits its nest after roosting, which delights in sunshine, and which is never known to take any food during the night-time, should be of such a greedy disposition as to be unable to retire to rest without providing food for a future occasion. As to the separate chambers, also, it may be observed that the fact of their existence is indisputable, and I think it is equally certain that they are not occasioned by adding new nests to old ones, as such additions would be at once discernible, from the difference occasioned in the colour and texture, by exposure to the inclemencies of the seasons."

One of the prettiest of the woven nests is figured and described by Vaillant in his splendid work on African birds; though he is doubtful what species of bird was the mechanic. The following is his account of this beautiful nest.

"It is, I believe," says he, "the nest of the tchitrec (Muscicapa cristata, LATHAM); for though I have never captured the bird of this species on the nest, and am not therefore certain of the fact, my good Klaas, a faithful if not a profound observer, assured me that it was. In one of our journies through a wood of mimosas, in the country of the Caffres, he discovered and brought me this nest, having seen, he said, and particularly observed a male and female tchitrec occupied in constructing it. It is remarkable for its peculiar form, bearing a strong resemblance to a small horn, suspended, with the point downwards, between two branches. Its great

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