Page:The Zoologist, 1st series, vol 1 (1843).djvu/44

16 upon our rigging ; we used to feel great pleasure in watching their arrival, ere we went below for the night.

One evening, when we were upwards of two hundred miles from land, and our other friends had left our lonely bark, a thrush, but of what species I could not make out, though I believe it was a redwing, took up its quarters on the top-gallant yards. The next evening it returned, and on the following, just at the time when, had it been on shore, it would have sought some favourite tree, it came to us again. Several times during this last day I had watched it till I was weary, flying about at a short distance from our ship, and thought if it had thus spent the three days of our acquaintance with it, how thoroughly sea-sick it must be. We had all this time been running along ten knots an hour, and had probably lured it farther and farther from its home. How it had borne the fatigues of the three days of its cease- less flight around us, and what its after fate, were thoughts that would often recur to us, as each breeze shortened the distance of our own migration.

Whilst crossing the Bay of Biscay, at our greatest distance from the land, we observed a flock of whimbrels coming towards us at a most rapid rate. It was their last flight — their last eager struggle to preserve life. Some fell short of us, too much exhausted to reach the goal ; others overshot their mark, and a few came down heavily upon the deck, and soon died. As we coasted along the European shore, many birds came on board almost daily, chiefly sky -larks and pipits.

On my return voyage in the beginning of April, whilst keeping near the coast of Spain, the deck of the steamer was a perfect levee daily, and a scene of the liveliest interest. Whilst the chimney-swallow and the sand-martin continued to fly round and round us, wheatears, whinchats, various species of warblers, redstarts, red-backed shrikes, &c, were constantly passing to and fro, each appearing to me as if it had put on its gayest apparel for the occasion. I certainly thought that the colouring of their plumage appeared brighter than the same birds do with us ; and I remember we made a similar remark with regard to the birds we saw in Norway. — W.C. Hewitson; Kingsdown, Bristol, October 29, 1842.

Affection of the Sparrow for its young. A few years ago I was sitting in a cottage, when my attention was attracted by an unusual screaming of a small bird. I immediately went to the back door, and saw that it proceeded from a house-sparrow that was fluttering about on the wall, at the base of which was a duck with something in its bill, which it was endeavouring to swallow. Upon attentively ob-