LINNETS AND NEST. [[Page 48.]
The linnet mostly builds its nest in low bushes, the furze being its favourite resort; it is constructed outside of dry grass, roots, and moss, and lined with hair and wool. We have it here in our picture; for our friend, Mr. Harrison Weir, always faithful in his transcripts of nature, has an eye, also, for beauty.
Round the nest, as you see, blossoms the yellow furze, and round it too rises a chevaux de frise of furze spines, green and tender to look at, but sharp as needles. Yes, here on this furzy common, and on hundreds of others all over this happy land, and on hill sides, with the snowy hawthorn and the pink-blossomed crab-tree above them, and, below, the mossy banks gemmed with pale-yellow primroses, are thousands of linnet nests and father-linnets, singing for very joy of life and spring, and for the summer which is before them. And as they sing, the man ploughing in the fields hard-by, and the little lad leading the horses, hear the song, and though he may say nothing about it, the man thinks, and wonders that the birds sing just as sweetly now as when he was young; and the lad thinks how pleasant it is, forgetting the while that he is tired, and, whistling something like a linnet-tune, impresses it on his memory, to be recalled with a tender sentiment years hence when he is a man, toiling perhaps in Australia or Canada; or, it may be, to speak to him like a guardian angel in some time of trial or temptation, and bring him back to the innocence of boyhood and to his God.
Bishop Huntley’s Anecdote.
Our picture shows us the fledgeling brood of the linnet, and the parent-bird feeding them. The attachment of this bird to its young is very great. Bishop Huntley, in his “History of Birds,” gives us the following anecdote in proof of it:—
“A linnet’s nest, containing four young ones, was found by some children, and carried home with the intention of rearing and taming them. The old ones, attracted by their chirping, fluttered round the children till they reached home, when the nest was carried up stairs and placed in the nursery-window. The old birds soon approached the nest and fed the young. This being observed, the nest was afterwards placed on a table in the middle of the room, the window being left open, when the parents came in and fed their young as before. Still farther to try their attachment, the nest was then placed in a cage, but still the old birds returned with food, and towards evening actually perched on the cage, regardless of the noise made by several children. So it went on for several days, when, unfortunately, the cage, having been set outside the window, was exposed to a violent shower of rain, and the little brood was drowned in the nest. The poor parent-birds continued hovering round the house, and looking wistfully in at the window for several days, and then disappeared altogether.”
CHAPTER IX.
THE PEEWIT.
The Peewit, lapwing, or plover, belongs to the naturalist family of Gallatores or Waders, all of which are furnished with strong legs and feet for walking, whilst all which inhabit watery places, or feed their young amongst the waves, have legs sufficiently long to enable them to wade; whence comes the family name.