[Jan.
•'
the feather
jorcots 1
ccn aeooaa
!.-!;
well
liest
It
is.
always appears
1
.,
Um
exertions of both the
young
full of life
—
and
fluttering being constantly in motion ranch to branch, creeping on all sides of reefl (sometimes with their backs downin search of small insects. Sometimes
I
.,
1864.
at its braving our severest winter ;
wonder it
generally contain*
2,
but yet Mr. Pennant informs us that iiirds cross annually from the Orkneys to Shetland Isles, where they breed and ale will stop to sing its feeble
oi.
og song.
of heahera, and .He fed in otter darkness.
It
is diii
IM through a the day, carrying one, thus pillara at each visit
in
causing
immense
Colonel Montagu quite an inch in length. has given us the following interesting account of these birds.
is
hen it has done been more than usually cold weather, I have observed a feati in the upper part of the hole oi way both backwards an<i forwards, thus acting as a screen, and keeping out much of the cold wind. It is impossible not b re and ingenuity -
ect.
the
little
oues
i
gapin
parents
size,
i
anil
,
r.
charming
i
they come
there remain, with food their
col
Gould, in his
ids of Great Britain, "
has given a beautiful coloured representation rood at the entrance
account of this very interestnest, by which it will be architecture and its habits are not may be added, that when it
i
aeen that tbe
its
its
able to
y< '
.1
fly,
uttering their
ich collect the stragglers. in a huddled t
heap, on
?^*
they remain
the next pairing-season ; to watch the whole e,
cheerf
- k ,v
a long flight for
so small a bird, the distance being sixty miles. The body, when stripped of its feathers, is not
This
As
is
aes in
r
—
This
return before winter.
and out,
i
low branch of a tree, thus resemtheir united bodies
He in J
a
says that a pair of them built their nest in his garden ; and as he was
fir-tree
desirous of ascertaining whether the male bird ever sung by way of instructing the young for this ones, as our song-birds invariably do
—
,
'
purpose he took the nest when the young were about six days old, placed it in a small basket, and by degrees enticed the old ones to his study-window. After they had become familiar with that situation, the basket was placed within the window, and then at the opposite side of the room. It was remarkable that although the female seemed regardless of danger, from her affection for her young, the male never once ventured within the room, yet would constantly feed them while they remained on the outside of the window. On the contrary, the female would feed them at the table, and even while I held the nest in my hand, provided I remained motionless. But on moving my head one day while she was on the edge of the nest, which I was holding in my hand, she made a precipitous iv mistook the open part of the window, knocked herself against the glass, and lay breathl the floor for
some time.
She recovered, how-
ever, and made her escape ; but this did not lessen her affection for her young. She soon returned with food for them, and again, when
was held in
my hand, she continued labour of making collect The visits of the female for them. generally repeated in the space of a
at
her maternal
d the rally it
ncpeoded ndermath
tin-
i.r.mrii
found
of a
i
hirtyupon an an hour; and this continued full
and-a-half, or, six times
in
fir-
s
in
a
day,
which^tf
n thu
1
00m
dm
eqi
- !g^PDS,
that th<
of the prettiest examples to be i
animals of
mob
rapid
growth.