side, and close together, the head of one at the tail of the other. By this mutual arrangement flies were brushed off from the head of each animal as well as their sides, and only two sides were exposed to the attacks of the insects. Sheep have been known to take care of a lamb when the dam has been rendered incapable of assisting it, and birds will feed the helpless young of others.

Birds also will cluster together for the purpose of keeping each other warm. I have observed swallows clustering, like bees when they have swarmed, in cold autumnal weather, hanging one upon another, with their wings extended, under the eaves of a house. I have also heard more than one instance of wrens being found huddled together in some snug retreat for the purpose of reciprocating warmth and comfort. The following interesting communication on this subject was made to me by Mr. Allan Cunningham, an author of whom his countrymen are justly proud, and who, I trust, will long continue to delight his admirers with the productions of his pen.

He says, 'I have once or twice in my life had an opportunity of answering that touching enquiry of Burns→

İlk happing bird, wee, hapless thing, That in the merry months o' spring, 'Delighted me to hear thee sing,

'What comes o' thee?

'Whare wilt thou cower thy chitt'ring wing
'An' close thy e'e?'

One cold December night, with snow in the air, when I was some ten years old or so, I was groping for sparrows under the eaves in the thatch, where you know they make holes like * those bored by swallows in the river-banks. In one of these holes I got a handful of something 'soft; it felt feathery and warm, and a smothered chirp told me it was living. I brought it, wondering, to my father's house, and took a look at it in the light. The ball consisted of four living wrens* rolled together, the heads under their * wings, and their feet pulled in, so that nothing ' was visible outside save a coating of mottled feathers. This I took to be their mode of keep*ing themselves warm during the cold of winter. If you ask if I am sure my memory serves me rightly, I answer yes; for having allowed one of the wrens to escape, it flew directly to where my father was reading at a candle, and I had the misery of receiving from his hand one of those whippings which a boy is not likely soon to forget.

When eighteen years old, or thereabouts, I met with something of the same kind: there was a difference, indeed, in the birds, for on this 'occasion they were magpiest-not birds of song, but of noise. I went out with my brother, now

* The Scotch call them cuttie-wrens, on account of their short tails.

+ Magpies are called by the Highlanders Plack and Plue 'Purds,' on account of their colour.

' in the navy, one fine moonlight winter night, to 'shoot wood-pigeons in a neighbouring plantation. "The wind was high, and we expected to find them ' in a sheltered place, where the soil was deep, and the spruce firs had grown high. As I went cowering along, looking through the branches ' between me and the moon, I saw, what seemed as large as a well filled knapsack, fixed on the 'top of a long, slender ash-tree, which had struggled up in spite of the firs, which you know grow very rapidly. I pointed it out to my brother, ' and seizing the shaft of the tree, shook it violently, 'when, if one magpie fell to the ground, there ' were not less than twenty dropt in a lump at my 'feet. Away they flew screaming in all directions. "One only remained on the spot which they occu

pied on the tree, and I shot it, and so settled 'what kind of birds had been huddled together to ' avoid the cold. I looked at them before I shook 'them down for a minute's space or more, and 'could see neither heads nor feet; it seemed a ' bundle of old clouts or feathers.'

I HAVE had some curious and interesting specimens of wasps' nests sent to me during the present winter, (1832) and also a hornet's nest, taken from the roof of one of the buildings at the stud-house in Hampton Court park. The latter was of a large size, and the combs were covered with a profusion of a substance in large flakes, resembling light brown paper. Some of these flakes were eighteen inches in length. When it is considered that one single female hornet is the founder and parent of a new colony, and that by her own unassisted exertions she forms the first cells for her brood, and covers them with a sort of umbrella to shelter and keep the grubs warm, we may form some idea of the prolific powers of the insect. In one season, sufficient materials were collected to fill a bushel by the united exertions of herself and progeny, all of them most beautifully arranged, and worked up chiefly, I believe, from decayed wood. All this

is, however, forsaken as winter approaches. The males and neuters perish, and the several females retire to their respective hiding places till the spring approaches, and then begin their labours of founding fresh colonies.

The most curious and beautiful insect's nest, however, which I have seen in this country was found under the slates of a new building a few days ago (February 25th, 1833) at Hampton Court. It was a wasp's nest, and must have been made in the course of the last summer, the roof of the building having been uncovered the preceding spring. Nothing can exceed the extraordinary workmanship of this very interesting specimen of an insect's labour, and I only regret that I cannot give the reader an adequate idea of it. The nest itself is in the Zoological Museum, to which Society I presented it. It is nearly six feet in circumference. The hole of entrance has been made almost as hard as a piece of wood: had it not been so, the entrance and exit of so many insects would have worn it away. Wasps, I believe, form their nests from the raspings of green wood. The external covering of the one in question resembles, very much, a mass of very small oyster-shells.

There is one very remarkable circumstance with regard to hornets, wasps and bees, which I