. Birds and their nests and eggs : found in and near great towns . ll. He detected our presence, anddid not stay even to look at us, nor allowedus to get a glimpse of him. Suddenly oneof the blackbirds, abruptly ceasing his song,dashed into a bush close by with that angryscold of his before mentioned, as if this timehe wished to say, how dare you intrudeupon our sanctity ? He was off again in aninstant, apparently meaning to tell us, ashe repeated his shriek, that he wouldforthwith go and apprize all his kin ofour unwarrantable encroachment on theirprivacy. We hoped that these birds werenestin
. Birds and their nests and eggs : found in and near great towns . ll. He detected our presence, anddid not stay even to look at us, nor allowedus to get a glimpse of him. Suddenly oneof the blackbirds, abruptly ceasing his song,dashed into a bush close by with that angryscold of his before mentioned, as if this timehe wished to say, how dare you intrudeupon our sanctity ? He was off again in aninstant, apparently meaning to tell us, ashe repeated his shriek, that he wouldforthwith go and apprize all his kin ofour unwarrantable encroachment on theirprivacy. We hoped that these birds werenesting in this quiet garden, and there wasevidence of this, for, passing an old gatewith crumbling brick pillars that led into apaddock on the other side, I picked up thehalf of a thrushs egg, which told of younghaving been hatched. This egg was veryneatly cracked in the middle, I took it MIDDLE OF MAY 105 home and photographed it with another—that of a house sparrow—which I found inmy garden, and which was also very evenlyfractured. I suppose the instinct of the. Plate XXX: Eggs of thrush and sparrow veryevenly fractured in the hatching. (Full size.) little unhatched bird when fully developedimpels it to get out of the shell, to breathe,and embark upon the sea of life. So itpecks away with all the might of its littlebeak (which must already be fairly hard)until released. Cramped up as it is in itssmall prison it cannot change its position,and can only turn round in one direction. io6 /A AN OLD DESERTED GARDEN— So the division is made neatly all round themiddle of the egg, and just where it ought tobe! The mother bird may assist, too, inthe operation when she perceives the eggmoving, and the point of the beak showingthrough the first hole. But the shells ofbirds eggs are not always so evenly dividedin hatching. Then we started to explore. The bull-finch, we thought, and the hedge-sparrowmust be surely building here. Our surmisewas correct. As we approached a deodoratree, a hen
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