when sleeping, with their heads downwards.
Their tail is broad. Their nests, about an inch in diameter, and as much
in breadth, are very compactly formed, the outer coat of grey lichen,
and lined with the fine down plucked from the stalks of the fern and
other herbs, and are fixed to the side of a branch or the moss-grown
side of a tree so artificially, that they appear, when viewed from
below, mere mossy knots, or accidental protuberances. They are bold and
pugnacious, two males seldom meeting on the same bush or flower without
a battle; and the intrepidity of the female, when defending her young,
is not less remarkable. They attack the eyes of the larger birds, when
their needle-like bill is truly a formidable weapon; and it is
affirmed, that if they perceive a man climbing the tree where their
nests are, they fly at his face, and strike him also in the eyes. Most
of the species lay only two eggs, and some of them only one. They have
been tamed--a female, with her nest and eggs, brought from Jamaica to
England, was fed with honey and water on the passage, and the young
ones, when hatched, readily took honey from the lips of the lady to whom
they were presented, and one, at least, survived two months after their
arrival.

[Illustration]

HOW CHARLEY ARRANGED HIS MUSEUM.

After uncle Brown had gone home, Charley determined he would begin to be
industrious at once. So he went up to his room, and began to arrange
his shelves, which his father had put up for the purpose. As he put each
one in its place, he examined it very carefully, and tried to recall
every thing his uncle had told him about it, so that it might be fixed
fast and clear in his memory, for he wished to tell his father and
mother and his favorite playmates the wonderful things he had heard. He
looked sharp too, to find in them other curious things, which his uncle
Brown hadn't mentioned, that he might ask him about them when he came
out again, or hunt them up in the books his uncle was to bring him.

As fast, as he put up a bird or shell, he wrote down, on a slip of stout
paper, in a large, neat hand (for he was quite a nice penman) the place
and name of the bird, or animal, that once lived in the shell, and where
was its native place, and fastened it with tacks above it.

Though he worked very steadily, it occupied all his spare time, out of
school, for several days.

Next he asked his father to get him a good sized blank book to make a
cata