cloth of its own weaving, as it often uses down, feathers, or cotton, with a few long hairs to bind these materials together; but amongst the numerous specimens of these nests now on our table, more than two-thirds are lined chiefly with hair, of various colours, and from various animals, though that of the cow and the horse seems to be preferred. We have one chaffinch's nest which appears more beautiful than usual, from being lined with a smooth thick texture of cow's hair, all of an orange-brown colour, which forms a fine contrast to the white wool intermixed with gray lichens and green moss around the brim. In some specimens, again, the hairs are nearly all white, and in others nearly all black; though seldom in a mass, and almost wholly worked in hair by hair. If a tuft of hair is procured, therefore, from a tree or a gate-post, where cattle have been rubbing themselves, the chaffinch seems to pull it minutely to pieces before interweaving it, while the wagtail and some other birds merely flatten it to make it lie smooth*.

The above by no means accords with what is stated by Syme, who says, it "has struck us as singular, with regard to the materials birds use in forming their nests, that the feathers and hair, which they make choice of for lining them, are always white or grey, never black. Whether the white colours of the feathers, &c. have anything to do in concentrating the heat, or that black might conduct the heat through the nest by radiation, and thus allow it to escape, we cannot say; but we can vouch for the fact t." We, on the other hand, have as frequently found black hair in nests, as hair of other colours. The white-throat (Sylvia cinerea), indeed, seems to prefer black hair.

The linnet (Linaria Linota, CuVIER) is not quite so neat as the chaffinch in the interior workmanship of its nest. The greenbird (Fringilla chloris), also, is not so dexterous a mechanic, as it forms a rather rough basket-work of roots, sometimes interwoven with moss, very loosely put together on the outside, but increasing in compactness as the structure advances; and when a layer of finer roots has been worked as a middle wall, the bird then begins a thick texture of hair similar to that of the wagtail above described, but more neatly rounded and compact, and not so deep as the chaffinch's.

be filled with air and exploded at pleasure; and the situation of it is at the divarication of the windpipe ; it is capable of great distension, and is probably the cause of this singular phenomenon, observed, we believe, in no other bird, at least in the same degree. We have had no opportunity ourselves of witnessing this, but are informed by Dr. Lamb, that, on dissect. ing a female, he observed that after the windpipe (trachea) had passed into the chest (thorax) to the lower part of the breast-bone (sternum), it was reflected to the superior portion of the latter, and then, on a second reflection, divided and passed into the lungs." He adds, "I have been assured, that by filling the windpipe with air after death and exploding it again suddenly, a similar noise will be produced *.

Singularly formed Windpipe of the Butor.

The cry of the bittern has been sometimes confounded with that of the snipe, though there is little if any resemblance between the twof. It is, on the contrary, so like the bleating of a goat, that Klein and Rzaczynski have named it the celestial goat (Capella *General Hist. of Birds, ix. 98. See also Ward, Nat. Hist. of Birds, iii. 150.

J. Rennie, Mag. Nat. Hist. i. 495.

cœlestis); and, in the North, it is well known under the name of Heather-bleat. The snipe, however, like most other birds, can vary its calls. "One note," it has been said, "may be compared to the words 'tinker, tinker,' uttered in a sharp shrill tone, as the bird ascends in his flight; the other, uttered as he descends, is somewhat similar to the bleating of a lamb, only in a deeper tone, and accompanied with a violent vibration of the wings *."

It is probable, as M. Temminck plausibly conjectures, that some unexamined peculiarity of construction in the vocal organs of the Indian-crowned pigeon (Lophyrus cristatus, VIEILLOT) enables it to produce the loud cooing, or rather bellowing, which so much alarmed M. Bougainville's sailors when they landed on a wild and unfrequented spot in some of the New Guinea islands, that they supposed it to proceed from the cries of hostile and concealed natives t. Temminck compares the sound to the gobbling ventriloquism of the turkey.

of hemp or flax round two forked twigs corresponding to the intended width of the nest; with the same materials, mixed with quantities of loose tow, he interweaves or fabricates a strong, firm kind of cloth, not unlike the substance of a hat in its raw state, forming it into a pouch of six or seven inches in depth, lining it substantially with various soft substances, well interwoven with the outward netting, and, lastly, finishes with a layer of horse-hair, the whole being shaded from the sun and rain by a natural penthouse, or canopy of leaves. As to a hole being left in the side for the young to be fed and void their excrements through, as Pennant and others relate, it is certainly an error: I have never met with anything of the kind in the nest of the Baltimore. Though birds of the same species have, generally speaking, a common form of building, yet, contrary to the usually received opinion, they do not build exactly in the same manner. As much difference will be found in the style, neatness, and finishing of the nests of the Baltimores as in their voices. Some appear far superior workmen to others, and probably age may improve them in this as it does in their colours. I have a number of their nests now before me, all completed and with eggs. One of these, the neatest, is in the form of a cylinder, of five inches diameter, and seven inches in depth, rounded at bot

tom.

The opening at top is narrowed by a horizontal covering to two inches and a half in diameter. The materials are flax, hemp, tow, hair, and wool, woven into a complete cloth, the whole tightly sewed through and through with long horse-hairs, several of which measure two feet in length. The bottom is composed of thick tufts of cow-hair, sewed also with strong horse-hair. This nest was hung on the extremity of the horizontal branch of an apple-tree, front