_necrophorus vespillo_, and other allied beetles, who have effected the interment so completely in four-and-twenty hours, that there was a difficulty in finding the bodies again. All this goes a great way to account for our so very seldom seeing any dead birds lying about, notwithstanding the immense mortality that must take place every year; but it certainly is not satisfactory; for although the birds of prey, and those which are not devoured by others, are comparatively small in number, how is it that none of _these_ are ever found? Once in a season, perhaps, we may find a dead crow, or a dead owl (generally one that has been shot), but who ever finds hawks, ravens, kites, sparrow-hawks, or any number of crows, out of all the annual mortality that must occur in their colonies? These birds are for the most part too large for the sexton beetle to bury; and, quickly as the foxes, stoats, weasels, and other prowling creatures would nose out the savoury remains, or the newly-fallen bodies, these creatures only inhabit certain localities--and dead birds may be supposed to fall in many places. Still, they are not seen. A pair of robins built their nest in the old ivy of a garden wall, and the hen shortly afterward sat in maternal pride upon four eggs. The gardener came to clip the ivy; and, not knowing of the nest, his shears cut off a part of it, so that the four eggs fell to the ground. Dropping on leaves, they were not broken. Notice being attracted by the plaintive cries of the hen bird, the eggs were restored to the nest, which the gardener repaired. The robins returned, the hen sat upon the eggs, and in a few days they were hatched. Shortly afterward the four little ones were all found lying upon the ground beneath, cold, stiff, and lifeless. The gardener's repairs of the nest had not been according to the laws of bird-architecture, and a gap had broken out. The four unfledged little ones were taken into the house, and, efforts being made to revive them by warmth, they presently showed signs of life, recovered, and were again restored to the nest. The gap was filled up by stuffing a small piece of drugget into it. The parent robins, perched in a neighboring tree, watched all these operations, without displaying any alarm for the result, and, as soon as they were completed, returned to the nest. All went on well for a day or two: but misfortune seemed never weary of tormenting this little family. A violent shower of rain fell. The nest being exposed, by the close clipping of the ivy leaves, the drugget got sopped, the rain half filled the nest, and the gardener found the four little ones lying motionless in the water. Once more they were taken away, dried near the fire, and placed in the nest of another bird fixed in a tree opposite the ivy. The parent birds in a few minutes occupied the nest, and never ceased their attentions until the brood were able to fly, and take care of themselves.