of it. Judge of his surprise when, in the course of a few seconds, he beheld a cloud of two or three hundred swallows arrive, with the rapidity of thought throw themselves before the nest, discharge at it some mud which they had brought in their bills, and retire to give place to another battalion, which repeated the same manoeuvre. They fired at two or three inches from the nest, thus preventing the sparrows from giving them any blows with their beaks. Besides, the mud, shot with such perfidious precision, had so blinded the sparrows, after the first discharge, that they very soon knew not in what manner to defend themselves. Still the mud continued to thicken more and more on the nest, whose original shape was soon obliterated: the opening would have almost entirely disappeared, had not the sparrows, by their desperate efforts at defense, broken away some portions of it. But the implacable swallows, by a strategic movement, as rapidly as it was cleverly executed, rushed upon the nest, beat down with their beaks and claws the clay over the opening already half stopped up, and finished the attack by hermetically closing it. Then there arose a thousand cries of vengeance and victory. Nevertheless, the swallows ceased not the work of destruction. They continued to carry up moistened clay till they had built a second nest over the very opening of the besieged one. It was raised by a hundred beaks at once, and, an hour after the execution of the sparrows, the nest was occupied by the dispossessed swallows. The drama was complete and terrible; the vengeance inexorable and fatal. The unfortunate sparrows not only expiated their theft in the nest they had taken possession of, whence they could not escape, and where suffocation and hunger were gradually killing them, but they heard the songs of love from the two swallows, who thus so cruelly made them wipe out the crime of their theft. During the fight the female remained alone, languishing and motionless, on an angle of the roof. It was with difficulty, and with a heavy flight, that she left this spot to take up her abode in her new house; and, doubtless, while the agony of the sparrows was being filled up, she laid her eggs, for she did not stir out for two days; the male, during that time, taking upon himself to search for insects and hunt for flies. He brought them alive in his beak, and gave them to his companion. Entirely devoted to the duties of incubation and maternity, she was only seen now and then to put out her head to breathe the pure air. Fifteen days after, the male flew away at day-break. He appeared more gay and joyful than usual; during the whole day he ceased not to bring to the nest a countless number of insects, and Cuvier, by standing on tiptoe at his window, could distinctly see six little yellow and hungry beaks, crying out, and swallowing with avidity all the food brought by their father. The female did not leave her family till the