We likewise became interested in a couple of redstarts, who, waxing bold, would tap at the casement, bidding us come and admire their young in the nest under the portico.  This was during our first visit:  on our second we found some dire misfortune had befallen the mother, the children and the nest.  The Hofbauer feared some servant must have destroyed them.  The poor little father remained attached to the melancholy spot, and, refusing to be comforted because his dear ones were not, flew round perpetually with a worm in his bill.  In his despair he would drop it untouched with piteous laments, until, as if his small instinct had become crazed, he would go in search of a fresh dainty morsel, and the sad scene was enacted over again.  Poor forlorn bird!  Like the swallows, the redstarts are dedicated to the Virgin:  such high patronage, however, in this case availed nothing.

Neither did Anton’s crossbill, which dwelt in the stube, have a much happier fate.  Although its master was very fond of it and tended it well, it had, like others of its race, to live in a very small prison suspended but a short way from the centre of the dark paneled ceiling.  Thus, in the winter between our two visits it died, suffocated by the hot air of the overheated, ill-ventilated stube.  Many poor pet birds of this species are thus killed, the victims of ignorance; for when a crossbill becomes sickly from its dark, hot, confined quarters, the peasant does not wish to cure it, believing that this holy bird, which tried to free the Lord from the cross, so sympathizes with redeemed humanity that whenever illness or epidemic threatens the household the devoted creature itself immediately takes the disease and dies, the family escaping unharmed.

It would be wearisome to enumerate all the different features and dispositions of the farm-yard inhabitants.  Let us rather pass on to Moro.  Perhaps it was no pleasant surprise to some of us when the Hof bauer having made the purchase of a house-dog, it proved to be none other than a large, handsome rusty-black hound which had once sprung out of a house near a crossing of the new railway, trying to attack my father, who had to defend himself with his stick against the disagreeable customer, until a voice from the house made the dog instantly and quietly shrink away.  The Hofbauer expressed his regret.  He, knowing nothing of the circumstances, had bought the animal out of good-nature, as his master, an Italian and the overseer of the railway, removing to a great distance, was forced to part with it.  He was anything but a savage dog, proving, on the contrary, easily cowed; so that the fact of his ever having made such a sally soon surprised us.  Whether he missed the occupation of looking after the work-people and guarding the line, or whether he only understood dialectical Italian, certain it is that he proved a most inert, taciturn dog.  He would wander about for weeks in listless despondency, doing nothing for his living, and showing