in the same barn, yet every thing seems to be conducted with great order and affection." The window-swallow, whose nest is too familiar to my readers to need any special description, is remarkable for occasionally selecting singular situations for its place of incubation, and for the tenacity with which it adheres to its choice when it has once completed the building. M. Hebert mentions a pair which built on the spring of a bell; and says that, though the concussion, when the bell was rung, prevented the young from being hatched, they continued to inhabit the insecure nest for the rest of the season. Another pair mentioned by Bingley, built for two successive seasons on a pair of garden-shears, stuck up against the boards in an outhouse; and another still, attached their tenement to the wings and body of a dead owl, hung up on the rafter of a barn, and so loose as to be moved by every gust of wind. This last was placed as a curiosity in the Leverian Museum. Shakspeare, in his own characteristic style, has described the peculiar habits of this agreeable little bird :"This guest of summer, The temple-haunting martlet, does approve Is delicate." MACBETH. The singular method which the house-martin sometimes takes to revenge itself on a sparrow when it endeavours to avail itself, as it not unfrequently does, of the labours of this ingenious architect, by taking forcible possession of its habitation, has been noticed by several writers. The following instance has been detailed to me by a friend, who was an eye-witness to the whole transaction-At Millfieldhill, in Northumberland, two pairs of swallows were accustomed to rebuild their here ditary nests, one at each upper corner of a bedroom window. One year, after the little "clay-built sheds" were just completed, a sparrow thought proper to ensconce herself in one of them. Immediately the outraged pair began to twitter with a loud and irritated note, and, darting frequently in at the door of the nest, endeavoured to dislodge the intruder. But in vain. The sparrow, protected as behind a battery, sat with his bill, a formidable weapon of defence, in the middle of the entrance, and gave so warm a reception to the besiegers, that, after a long and fierce contest, the lawful owners were obliged to yield to the fraudulent occupier; but not unrevenged. They retired for a time, along with their neighbours of the opposite corner, as if for consultation, and by-and-by were seen returning in a band, apparently to renew the struggle with these fresh auxiliaries. But no such thing: each was loaded with a mouthful of clay, and, setting diligently to work, adhering by their claws to the outside of the nest, they had, before nightfall, completed their ingenious object of retaliation, by entirely building up the entrance to the nest, and thus leaving the robber sparrow a helpless captive, immured in a prison, where she had hoped to secure for herself a commodious habitation. Here the sparrow remained closely pent up till next morning, when a maid-servant, taking pity on the prisoner, restored her to liberty, by drawing down the upper-sash of the window. This operation, however, destroyed the structures of both the friendly pairs; but, nothing discouraged, they immediately recommenced their laborious task, and, in a few days, had re-erected them in the same site. We may well enquire if it was simple instinct which led to this combination and ingenious device. And if so, our next enquiry will be, how this kind of instinct is to be defined, so as to distinguish its operations from those of reason. There is a species of swallow called Salanguano, which inhabits Java, and other islands of the Indian Archi pelago, whose nests are of a very remarkable construction; and, being edible, and highly esteemed by Chinese epicures, form a valuable article of commerce. They differ considerably in their composition; and the manner of procuring their materials, and constructing them, is more a matter of conjecture than of certainty. Some authors, among whom is Goldsmith, assert that the substance of these nests is a sort of froth of the sea, or of the spawn of fish, which is alleged to be strongly aromatic ; some describe it as a kind of gum, collected by the birds from the tree called Calambone; others, again, would have us to believe, that it is a viscous humour, discharged by them through the bill at the season of reproduction. Whatever this singular substance may be, it is deposited by the swallows in deep caverns, frequently very dangerous of access, where human cupidity and epicurism have found means to penetrate. "The most remarkable and productive caves," says Mr Crawford, “in Java, of which I superintended a moiety of the collection for several years, are those of Karanbolang, in the province of Baglen, on the south coast of the island. There the caves are only to be approached by a perpendicular descent of many hundred feet, by ladders of bamboo and ratan, over a sea rolling violently against the rocks. When the mouth of the cavern is attained, the perilous office of taking the nests must often be performed by torch-light, by penetrating into recesses of the rock, where the slightest trip would be instantly fatal to the adventurers, who see nothing below them but the turbulent surf, making its way into the chasms of the rocks. The common prices for these nests at Canton, are, for the most esteemed kinds, about six pounds sterling per pound weight, while the inferior sorts scarcely average more than half of that enormous sum. From Java there are exported about 27,000 lbs., the greater part of which is of the first quality. From the Suluk Archipelagos, between two and three times that quantity is exported. It is computed, that 30,000 tons of VOL. II. Chinese shipping is employed in this extraordinary trade; and that the whole yearly quantity consumed is not less than 242,400 lbs. In the Indian Archipelago, at the prices already quoted, this property is worth 1,263,519 Spanish dollars, or L. 284,290! It forms a considerable branch of the revenues of the Crown.” I cannot close this sketch of the various modifications of that instinct with which it has pleased the Creator to endow the winged tribes, without again soliciting attention to the variety and wisdom of the contrivances by which the safety both of the parents and their progeny are provided for, regarding as they do, not merely the peculiar habits of the birds themselves, and the susceptibility of injury in their eggs and young, but their particular locality with reference to climate, and to the living creatures which exist in their neighbourhood. I have already noticed a remarkable instance of this latter kind of adaptation, in the different kind of nests formed by the woodpeckers of Europe and of America; and I think the reader will join me in a similar observation with regard to the swallows of India, as compared with their congeners in our own quarter of the world. Here this tribe are strikingly familiar with their fellowinhabitants of the human race. There is nothing in the materials of their nests which man can covet, and they therefore freely throw themselves on the protection of these lords of the creation. But it is very different in the Indian Archipelago. There, from some peculiarity with which we are not acquainted, the swallows are made to build their "procreant cradles" of materials which man eagerly covets as food; and, therefore, these little tenants of the air are taught to retire to deep and dangerous caverns, where their wings enable them easily to penetrate; but where nothing but a morbid and pampered appetite could induce man to pursue them. SEVENTH WEEK-TUESDAY. REPRODUCTION OF BIRDS.-HATCHING OF EGGS, AND REARING THE BROOD. WHEN the nest is prepared, the bird is instructed, by Him who has so mysteriously provided for the propagation of the mortal beings he has created, to lay that number of eggs which she can safely rear, or which, in his infinite wisdom, he finds best calculated for preserving the balance of living beings. I have already observed, that there is in this, as in other departments of Nature, a distinct evidence of beneficent contrivance in the general law which regulates the number of eggs hatched by each species,-inasmuch as, that birds of prey, which are intended to restrain within certain bounds, but not to exterminate, the smaller tribes, produce very few; while the other orders, in proportion to their helplessness and liability to destruction, produce a more numerous progeny. It is curious to observe the instinct which regulates this. The bird, by its natural constitution, is capable of laying many more eggs than she actually produces in one season; but, as soon as she finds her nest sufficiently replenished, she desists from laying, of her own accord, and by an apparently voluntary act. The domestic fowl is a familiar example of this. Although she is capable of producing eggs through the greater part of the year, yet, if her nest be left undisturbed, she will refrain from laying, and begin to brood, as soon as she finds that she has laid as many as the heat of her body can easily warm. That this is the case with wild birds also, I remember having myself, when a schoolboy, proved by an experiment. Having found the nest of a yellow-hammer,-a bird for which school-boys have no tenderness, I carefully abstracted one of the three eggs which it contained, when the bird did not appear |