without direct exposure to the sun, after which they are packed in small boxes, usually of a picul, or about 135 pounds in weight. They are assorted for the Chinese market into three kinds, according to their qualities." The English reader will be surprised to learn, that some of these nests are sold in China for more than their weight in silver.

Of the parasite birds, or those who seize the nests of others, whom at the same time they dispossess, the house sparrow seems to be the most audacious. He is particularly fond of the nest of the swallow, because, we suppose, he finds it the most comfortable in the season of frost and snow. Neither does he hesitate to roost in the nest of a rook, who has chosen to absent himself for a while from his native home. This parasitical instinct is sometimes taken advantage of by those who are desirous of having birds in their neighbourhood.

Those who are fond of harbouring birds near their habitations, take advantage of these parasite propensities of some species, by fixing conveniences for them to nestle in, about houses and gardens. Belon tells us, that in certain provinces of France it is customary, in this way, to hang pots in the tops of trees which are haunted by thrushes; and these birds, finding convenient sheltered nests, seldom fail to lay their eggs in them, to hatch and rear their young. This plan, which Aldrovand says is unknown in Germany, (nor is it, we believe, practised in Britain), contributes doubly to the multiplication of the species, for it both preserves the brood, and, by saving part of the time spent in building nests, it enables the birds to make two hatches a-year.

'Buffon thinks this is a modern improvement upon the ancient Roman method of breeding thrushes for the table in voleries, of which Varro and Coulmella have left curious details. Each of these voleries contained many thousand thrushes and blackbirds, besides other birds excellent for eating, such as ortolans and quails. So numerous were those voleries in the vicinity of Rome, and in the territory of the Sabines, that the dung of the thrushes was employed to manure the lands, and, what is remarkable, to fatten oxen and hogs. These thrushes had little liberty in their prisons, for they were never suffered to go abroad, and they laid no eggs; but as they were supplied with abundance of choice food, they fattened to the great profit of the proprietor. Each fat thrush, except at the time of migration, sold for three denarii, equal to about two shillings sterling; and on the occasion of a triumph or public festival, this sort of trade yielded a profit of twelve hundred per cent. The voleries were a kind of vaulted courts, the inside furnished with a number of roosts. The door was very low; the windows were few, and placed in such a manner as to prevent the prisoners from seeing the fields, the woods, the birds fluttering at liberty, or whatever might awaken their sensibility, and disturb the calm so conducive to corpulence. A little glimmering light was sufficient to direct them to their food; which consisted of millet, and a sort of paste made with bruised figs and flour. They had also given them the berries of the lentisk, of the myrtle, of the ivy, and whatever, in short, would improve the delicacy and flavour of their flesh. They were supplied with

a little stream of water, which ran in a gutter through the volery. Twenty days before they were intended for killing, their allowance was augmented; nay, so far was the attention carried, that they gently removed into a little ante-chamber the thrushes which were plump and in good order, to enjoy more quiet; and, frequently, to heighten the illusion, they hung boughs and verdure, imitating natural scenery, so that the birds might fancy themselves in the midst of the woods. In short, they treated their slaves well, because they knew their interest. Such as were newly caught were put in small separate voleries, along with others that had been accustomed to confinement; and every contrivance, every soothing art was employed to habituate them somewhat to bondage; yet these birds were never completely tamed.

We are not aware that any contrivance is resorted to in Britain to entice birds to build in particular places, except in the case of the housesparrow. Sometimes, pots of unglazed delf ware, of a sub-oval shape, with a narrow hole for an entrance, are fixed upon the walls of houses, several feet below the eave; and the sparrows, finding a domicile so suited to their habits, very soon take possession of every pot thus provided for them. But those who are so careful to accommodate the sparrows, do it, not because they are fond of their neighbourhood, or their yelping concerts, but to prevent their nestling under the eaves, where they dig out the mortar with their strong bills, when they do not find holes large enough for their accommodation. It probably never struck those persons that, by thus encouraging the sparrows to breed, they are promoting the increase of the race; and, unless they multiply their sparrow pots yearly, they may be almost certain that the supernumeraries will resort to the eaves nearest their birth-place.

'In Holland, square boxes are placed on the house-tops to entice the stork (Ciconia alba, BELON) to build; and, for the same purpose, it was customary in France, in Belon's time, to place wheels there, a practice said to be still followed in some parts of Germany.

In North America, probably to increase as much as possible the rural charms of their brief summers, more than one species of bird is invited" by all appliances" to nestle near the houses. Among these half-domesticated and sociable birds, the house-wren, the blue-bird, and the purple martin, are the most noted. The latter (Hirundo purpurea, LATII.) is like our window-swallow, a bird of passage; and he always makes his summer residence among the habitations of man; who, deriving considerable advantage as well as amusement from his company, is generally his friend and protector. Accordingly, whenever he comes he is almost certain of finding some hospitable retreat fitted up for his accommodation and the reception of his family, either in the projecting wooden cornice, on the top of the roof or sign-post, or, if all these be wanting, he betakes himself to the dove-cot, among the pigeons; and when he makes choice of a particular quarter of the latter, not a pigeon dare set foot within his premises. Some of the Anglo-Americans have large conveniences constructed for these birds, consisting of numerous apartments, which are for the most part fully tenanted every spring; and, in such swallowries, individual birds have been noted to return to the same box for several successive years. pp. 339-343.

The swallow, notwithstanding the velocity and apparent ease of its movements, must be a cowardly bird, as it will permit even the little wren to enter its nest and take forcible possession of the premises, which it will retain against the lawful owners. These and other birds of a similar propensity, make the conquered nest their own, and in it they will rear their offspring with the utmost attention. But there is more than one species of these parasite birds, which take no trouble whatever with their young, contenting themselves with finding a nest in which their eggs may be deposited. This is especially the case with the cuckoo, who never builds a nest for herself, but drops her eggs into the habitation of another, to whom it confides the care of bringing forth its progeny. This kindness, it was formerly, and still in many places is, believed, the young cuckoo repays by devouring its fostermother. But this certainly is an error.

M. Montbeillard put the matter beyond doubt by experiment. On the 27th of June he put a young cuckoo, already nine inches long, in an open cage with three young fauvettes, which were scarcely fledged, and could not eat without assistance. The cuckoo, however, so far from devouring, or even threatening them, seemed eager to repay its obligations to the species, suffering the little birds, which were not in the least afraid, to warm themselves under its wings. On the other hand, a young owl which had as yet only been fed by hand, began of itself to eat by devouring a fauvette which was lodged with it. The account of the carnivorous habits of young cuckoos has by some been qualified, by alleging that it swallows its foster-nestlings just as they burst from the shell; and as these little embryos might be looked upon as something intermediate between eggs and birds, they might therefore be eaten by the cuckoo, which is said to feed on eggs. This, however, requires to be confirmed by observation; but of the insatiable voracity of the cuckoo there can be no doubt. In the summer of 1829, a gardener at Lee, in Kent, kept a young cuckoo for several months, and such was its appetite, that it never seemed to have enough. Yet it did not make any attempt to eat, unless it was fed, up till October; of course after all his brethren had migrated, and the possessor, disliking the constant trouble of feeding it, had it killed and stuffed.

'The disappearance of the foster-nestlings from the nest in which a cuckoo is hatched, is more satisfactorily accounted for by the observations of the late Dr. Jenner, to whom the world was indebted for the inestimable discovery of vaccination. "On the 18th of June, 1787," says he, "I examined the nest of a hedge-sparrow (Accentor modularis), which then contained a cuckoo and three hedge-sparrows' eggs. On inspecting it the day following, the bird had hatched; but the nest then contained only a young cuckoo and one hedge-sparrow. The nest was placed so near the extremity of a hedge, that I could distinctly see what was going forward in it; and, to my great astonishment, I saw the young cuckoo, though so lately hatched, in the act of turning out the young hedge-sparrow. The mode of accomplishing this was very curious; the little animal, with the assistance of its rump and wings, contrived to get the bird upon its back, and making a lodgment for its burthen by elevating its elbows, clambered backwards with it up the side of the nest till it reached the top,

where, resting for a moment, it threw off its load with a jerk, and quite disengaged it from the nest. It remained in this situation for a short time, feeling about with the extremities of its wings, as if to be convinced whether the business was properly executed, and then dropped into the nest again. With these, the extremities of its wings, I have often seen it examine, as it were, an egg and nestling before it began its operations; and the nice sensibilities which these parts seem to possess, seemed sufficiently to compensate the want of sight, which as yet it was destitute of. I afterwards put in an egg, and this, by a similar process, was conveyed to the edge of the nest and thrown out. These experiments I have since repeated several times, in different nests, and have always found the young cuckoo disposed to act in the same manner. In climbing up the nest, it sometimes drops its burthen, and thus is foiled in its endeavours; but after a little respite, the work is resumed, and goes on almost incessantly till it is effected. The singularity of its shape is well adapted to these purposes; for, different from other newly-hatched birds, its back, from the shoulders downwards, is very broad, with a considerable depression in the middle. This depression seems formed by nature for the design of giving a more secure lodgment to the egg of the hedge-sparrow, or its young one, when the young cuckoo is employed in removing either of them from the nest. When it is about twelve days old this cavity is filled up, and then the back assumes the shape of nestling birds in general.” "It sometimes happens (which disproves Pliny's statement) that two cuckoos' eggs are deposited in the same nest, and then the young produced from one of them must inevitably perish. Two cuckoos and one hedge-sparrow were hatched in the same nest, and one hedge-sparrow's egg remained unhatched. In a few hours afterwards a contest began between the cuckoos for the possession of the nest, which continued undetermined until the next afternoon, when one of them, which was somewhat superior in size, turned out the other, together with the young hedgesparrow and the unhatched egg. The combatants alternately appeared to have the advantage, as each carried the other several times to the top of the nest, and then sunk down again, oppressed by the weight of the burthen; till at length, after various efforts, the strongest prevailed, and was afterwards brought up by the hedge-sparrow."

Here, then, we have the high authority of one of the most celebrated scientific men of his day for these very remarkable circumstances, which clearly explain the origin of the mistakes of Aristotle and Pliny, as well as of many modern writers, who having ascertained the disappearance of the eggs and young of the cuckoo's foster-parents, conceived (plausibly enough, though erroneously) that they were devoured by the young cuckoo.'-pp. 365-368.

Colonel Montagu states, that he had ocular evidence of the fact stated by Dr. Jenner, of a young cuckoo turning out of a hedge sparrow's nest a young swallow; and a similar circumstance is mentioned from his own observation by Blackwall, in the Manchester Memoirs, with the difference, that in this case, the young cuckoo, soon after it was hatched, expelled a whole nest, not of swallows, but titlarks, together with some unhatched eggs, without much difficulty.

In closing Mr. Rennie's volume, we must express a wish that he had digested with somewhat more of method, the entertaining matter which he collected with so much industry. He frequently confounds one class with another, and more than once, repeats the same facts under different heads. We care little, in a work of this kind, about systematic arrangement; but there is a natural order of proceeding in all subjects, which cannot be abandoned with impunity. Nor can we conclude without observing, that though the volume is upon the whole useful and amusing, it is by no means equal in merit to those by which it has been immediately preceded. Mr. Rennie, in fact, was much more at home upon the subject of Insect Architecture, than he seems to have been upon that of the Architecture of Birds.

ART. IX.-Mémoires de Madame La Duchesse D'Abrantès, ou Souvenirs Historiques sur Napoleon, La Revolution, Le Directoire, Le Consulat, L'Empire, et la Restauration. Tome premier, 8vo. Paris: Ladvocat. 1831.

NOTWITHSTANDING the multitude of volumes which has been poured upon the world during the last few years, for the purpose of illustrating the life and career of Napoleon, still a small, but by no means an uninteresting portion of the great historical picture, remained to be filled up. The part which he took in the revolution, the period of the Consulate, the imperial reign, the two exiles, and death of the memorable hero, are now made familiar to the world by innumerable volumes of authentic details. The early life of Buonaparte alone stood in need of that candid explanation, which it is now pretty much acknowledged that the remaining portion of it has received. Perhaps the curiosity of the world upon this point was not a little stimulated by the fact that Napoleon himself seemed always reluctant to recur to the period of his youth: the perseverance with which he conducted a plan for destroying the papers of General Menou, which he knew to contain memoranda respecting his early career, indeed, demonstrates the extent of this repugnance.

The chief value of the present work consists in its presenting a good many materials for completing the biographical record of one of the most extraordinary of men. The Duchess of Abrantes, who, it may not be unnecessary to state, is the widow of Marshal Junot, enjoyed a singular combination of opportunities for collecting facts connected with the boyhood of Napoleon. Her mother lived upon intimate terms with the mother of Buonaparte, and she actually carried him when but an infant in her arms. Her relations were on the most familiar footing with the Buonaparte family and during the time that the future hero attended as a school boy at the military school at Paris, he spent his leisure hours chiefly with VOL. II. (1831.) NO. IV.

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