his
wife, with whom he appeared for some minutes to hold counsel, after
which they flew away into the air, and quickly disappeared. The female
sparrow came back soon after; the male recounted all that had
passed--the arrival, the attack, and flight of the swallows--not without
accompanying the recital with what seemed to Cuvier to be roars of
laughter. Be this as it may, the housekeeper did not rest satisfied with
making only a hullah-balloo, for the female went forth again, and
collected in haste a much larger quantity of provisions than usual. As
soon as she returned, after having completed the supplies for a siege,
two pointed beaks, instead of one, defended the entrance to the nest.
Cries, however, began to fill the air, and an assemblage of swallows
gathered together on a neighboring roof. Cuvier recognized distinctly
the dispossessed couple, who related to each newcomer the impudent
robbery of the sparrow. The male, with blood-stained head and bared
neck, distinguished himself by the earnestness of his protestations and
appeals of vengeance. In a little while two hundred swallows had arrived
at the scene of conflict. While the little army was forming and
deliberating, all at once a cry of distress came from an adjacent
window. A young swallow, doubtless inexperienced, instead of taking part
in the counsels of his brethren, was chasing some flies which were
buzzing about a bunch of neglected or castaway flowers before the
window. The pupils of Cuvier had stretched a net there to catch
sparrows; one of the claws of the swallow was caught by the perfidious
net. At the cry which this hair-brained swallow made, a score of his
brethren flew to the rescue: but all their efforts were in vain; the
desperate struggles which the prisoner made to free himself from the
fatal trap only drew the ends tighter, and confined his foot more
firmly. Suddenly a detachment took wing, and, retiring about a hundred
paces, returned rapidly, and, one by one, gave a peck at the snare,
which each time, owing to the determined manner of the attack, received
a sharp twitch. Not one of the swallows missed its aim, so that, after
half an hour of this persevering and ingenious labor, the chafed string
broke, and the captive; rescued from the snare, went joyously to mingle
with his companions. Throughout this scene, which took place twenty feet
from Cuvier, and at almost as many from the usurped nest, the observer
kept perfectly still, and the spar