aggressive. I have known him to station his young in a thick
cornel-bush on the edge of the raspberry-bed, after the fruit began
to ripen, and feed them there for a week or more. In such cases he
shows none of that conscious guilt which makes the robin
contemptible. On the contrary, he will maintain his post in the
thicket, and sharply scold the intruder who ventures to steal *his*
berries. After all, his claim is only for tithes, while the robin will
bag your entire crop if he get a chance.

Dr. Watts's statement that "birds in their little nests agree," like
too many others intended to form the infant mind, is very far from
being true. On the contrary, the most peaceful relation of the
different species to each other is that of armed neutrality. they are
very jealous of neighbors. A few years ago I was much interested
in the housebuilding of a pair of summer yellow-birds. They had
chosen a very pretty site near the top of a tall white lilac, within
easy eye-shot of a chamber window. A very pleasant thing it was
to see their little home growing with mutual help, to watch their
industrious skill interrupted only by little flirts and snatches of
endearment, frugally cut short by the common-sense of the tiny
house-wife. They had brought their work nearly to an end, and had
already begun to line it with fern-down, the gathering of which
demanded more distant journeys and longer absences. But, alas!
the syringa, immemorial manor of the catbirds, was not more than
twenty feet away, and these "giddy neighbors" had, as it appeared,
been all along jealously watchful, though silent, witnesses of what
they deemed an intrusion of squatters. No sooner were the pretty
mates fairly gone for a new load of lining, than

"To their unguarded nest these weasel Scots