It cannot fail to strike a
European as singular to see so many birds' nests, situated close to a
village, remain unmolested within reach of so many boisterous
children, with their little proprietors and families fluttering and
chirping among them with as great a feeling of security and gaiety of
heart as the children themselves enjoy.
In any part of Europe not a nest of such a colony could have lived an
hour within reach of such a population; for the baya bird has no
peculiar respect paid to it by the people here, like the wren and
robin-redbreast in England. No boy in India has the slightest wish to
molest birds in their nests; it enters not into their pastimes, and
they have no feeling of pride or pleasure in it. With us it is
different--to discover birds' nests is one of the first modes in
which a boy exercises his powers, and displays his love of art. Upon
his skill in finding them he is willing to rest his first claim to
superior sagacity and enterprise. His trophies are his string of
eggs; and the eggs most prized among them are those of the nests that
are discovered with most difficulty, and attained with most danger.
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