land, to the deserted home beneath the straw-built shed, or the favourite chimneytop, in which they nursed their former brood.

But to return to my narrative, lest I tire you with my digression. The following spring a gentleman, to whom my sister Jane had shown her darling pet, very kindly sent her a handsome dove, with a black spotted head and dark coverts to her wings, as a mate for Snowball; and not very long afterwards we had the joyful satisfaction of beholding a nice white egg in a distant corner of the coop among the straw.

This egg was an object of great interest to us, and like silly children who knew no better, we went twenty times a day to visit it, taking it from the nest, examining it, and carrying it about in our hands, to show it to every person who would be troubled with looking on it, to the great indignation of Snowball, who expressed his displeasure at our proceeding by fiercely buffeting us with his strong white wing, pecking our

hands, and strutting angrily about the coop, cooing, and bowing his head in a stately manner, evidently intending to reprove us for the unwarrantable freedom we were guilty of, in taking away his valuable egg. And here I must notice, that birds and beasts are very jealous over their young, and display great uneasiness if interfered with in any possible way during the early stage of their attendance on their little families. The latter will often destroy their little ones, and birds forsake their nests; but with these circumstances we were at that time unacquainted. Experience, however, soon taught us wisdom. In one of our excursions to visit our eggs, we had the misfortune to let one fall from our hands. It was broken into shivers: and thus perished our first hope of an increase to our stock; the other solitary egg proved to be addled, for the pigeons kicked it out of the nest.

Unacquainted with this peculiarity in our favourites, we loudly exclaimed against

their unkind and unnatural conduct; and though we replaced the deserted egg every day, every day we found it had been treated with the same contempt. Papa, however, explained the reason, and breaking the egg, proved to us the wisdom of the birds in rejecting it; advising us at the same time not to interfere again with the nest of the dove, who was preparing to set again. In due time our pigeons hatched a pair of ugly little birds, not much handsomer than toads, with great beaks, and bodies scantily covered, not with feathers, but long, dirty, yellowish hair; and to add to their unsightly appearance, their eyes were closed. We were shocked at the hideous appearance of the young brood, which we had fancied would be at least as pretty as little chickens or ducklings. The old birds were less fastidious, and seemed to regard them with infinite satisfaction, carefully brooding over them by turns, the cock taking his share of nursing equally with the hen. And now

the whole tenderness and affection of these creatures seemed centered in their offspring, their sole employment that of brooding over them, and supplying them with food and drink, which they brought in their bills. Snowball and his gentle partner had been kept prisoners till this period in the coop, but mamma advised us to leave the sliding bar open, that they might have liberty to go abroad, and procure food for themselves and their young. At first we were fearful lest Snowball should be tempted to make use of his liberty and depart, especially when we beheld him take a sweeping circuit round the fields; but we were little acquainted with the devoted attachment and parental instinct that distinguishes the feathered part of the creation; an attachment so strong, that it appears for a season to alter the very nature and general habits of the bird, overcoming their natural timidity, and rendering those creatures that were before remarked for the gentleness, reserve,

and shyness of their habits, bold, fierce, and subtle. These traits are remarkable in the common domestic fowls. The turkey, goose, and hen become almost formidable; jealous, wrathful, and vindictive, they guard their young broods from all real or fancied danger; unmindful of their own wants, they are abstemious to a degree, abstaining from food, that their young may be more fully satisfied, and with unwearied constancy pass their time in searching for nutriment, protecting their helpless progeny from the approach of any foes that might molest them, calling them together, and shielding them beneath the covert of their wings, affording a beautiful pattern of parental care and parental love.

Children may here observe a picture of that self-devotedness, that unwearied tenderness that was lavished on them during the years of their helpless infancy. Like the careful hen, or tender dove, their parent watched over and guarded them from dan