“Enamor’d with their ancient haunts, ——and hover round.” I once knew a pair of these birds bring off two broods in one season from the same nest. This flycatcher delights in eminences. The naked spray of a tree, or projecting stone in a building, or even a tall stick in the very middle of the grass-plot, is sure to attract its attention, as affording an uninterrupted view of its winged prey; and from this it will be in constant activity a whole summer’s day, capturing its food and returning to swallow it. The digestion of some birds must be remarkably rapid, to enable them to receive such constant replenishments of food. The swift and the swallow are feeding from the earliest light in the morning till the obscurity of evening; the quantities of cherries and raspberries that the blackcap and pettichaps will eat are surprising, as they are unremittingly consuming from morning till night; and this flycatcher seems to require a proportion of food equal to any bird, being in constant progress, capturing one moment, and resting the next. But fruit and insects are with us only for a short season; and their privations, when these no longer afford a supply, indicate, that they possess the power of abstinence, as well as that of consumption. We observed this summer two common thrushes frequenting the shrubs on the green in our garden. From the slenderness of their forms, and the freshness of their plumage, we pronounced them to be birds of the preceding summer. There was an association and friendship between them, that called our attention to their actions: one of them seemed ailing, or feeble from some bodily accident; for though it hopped about, yet it appeared unable to obtain sufficiency of food; its companion, an active sprightly bird, would frequently bring it worms, or bruised snails, when they mutually partook of the banquet; and the ailing bird would wait patiently, understand the actions, expect the assistance of the other, and advance from his asylum upon its approach. This procedure was continued for some days, but after a time we missed the fostered bird, which probably died, or by reason of its weakness met with some fatal accident. We have many relations of the natural affection of animals; and whoever has attended to the actions of the various creatures we are accustomed to domesticate about us can probably add many other instances from their own observation. Actions which are in any way analogous to the above, when they are performed by mankind, arise most commonly from duty, affection, pity, interest, pride; but we are not generally disposed to allow the inferior orders of creation the possession of any of these feelings, except perhaps the last: yet when we have so many instances of attachment existing between creatures similar and dissimilar in their natures, which are obvious to all, and where no interest can possibly arise as a motive; when we mark the varieties of