File:Birds and their nests and eggs - found in and near great towns (1907) (14775413213).jpg

Identifier: birdstheirnestse00vosg (find matches)
Title: Birds and their nests and eggs : found in and near great towns
Year: 1907 (1900s)
Authors: Vos, George Herklots
Subjects: Birds Birds Birds
Publisher: London : G. Routledge New York : E.P. Dutton.
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Smithsonian Libraries

View Book Page: Book Viewer
About This Book: Catalog Entry
View All Images: All Images From Book
Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book.

Text Appearing Before Image:
nd filled up with plots wellbroken by the plough, intersected by manydykes, most of which were now covered withthe myriad little white flowers of the waterbuttercup. And now to the nests. We hadmarked out a round for the day. On start-ing we could see far ahead several dozen sea-gulls feeding in a recently-ploughed field,their white bodies contrasting sharply withthe dark soil. Our first steps were througha field of corn as yet only a foot high, apathway being left through it diagonallyas a short cut. Many skylarks were at homehere, singing their joyous carols. Their nestsare hard to find. The presence of a bird sing-ing over any given spot does not mean that anest is just there, for they are artful birds.They alight some distance from the nest andrun to it. A favourite way with boys is tofind the nests by dragging a piece of stringacross a field and so disturbing any sitting IN THE NORTH OF KENT 59 birds. But this if done in a field ripeningfor hay would very probably end in a right-
Text Appearing After Image:
VIII : Nest of skylark (J size), ful prosecution by the owner, if the tres-passers were caught. Plate VIII shows a 6o A LONG DAY WITH THE BIRDS nest which Ted found. It contained foureggs of a light greenish-brown colour, markedall over with close lines and marks of darkerbrown. The joyous song of the bird on thewing is often kept up for half an hour oreven more at a time. Who has not heard thelark sing ? The notes are heard even inwinter (like those of the blackbird and thrush)if the weather be mild. But the bird is infull song all through the nesting season. Itis a painful sight to see a skylark cooped upin a little wooden cage made with a roundfront like a bay window, in which one smallsod of grass is placed for the bird ! Eventhen, however, it will sing, fluttering its wingsthe while, trying to imagine itself soaringup above the sunlit fields ! The bird isprolific, laying four or five eggs each clutch,and nesting two or three times each season,from the month of April onwards. A sk

Note About Images