File:British birds' eggs and nests - popularly described (1870) (14752886074).jpg

Identifier: britishbirdseggs00atk (find matches)
Title: British birds' eggs and nests : popularly described
Year: 1870 (1870s)
Authors: Atkinson, J. C. (John Christopher), 1814-1900
Subjects: Birds Birds Birds
Publisher: London New York : G. Routledge and Sons
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Smithsonian Libraries

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gentler twitter of the Swallow. I like to hear his attemptsat song, reminding the listener of the IMissel-birds early springmusic. And I like to hear his wilder, grating call-note, which isthe usual warning the ornithologist has that the Moor Blackbirdhas returned for the season. His nest is very like the Blackbudsin design and general structure. An inner lining of bents and■ fine ling, a wall of clay, and an outer husk of moss, ling, andsuch like moorland matters. It is not strongly or compactlyformed, and makes a great litter if kept a day or two andsubject to be handled or moved, however carefully. It is alwaysbuilt on, or near the ground, on the wHd moor; and I once trodthe leathers out of the wing of a sitting nen, on whom and hernest I nearly trod in leaping a gully. The eggs are usually ouror five in number, and remind you of the Blackbirds eggs intheir general appearance; but the blotchings or markings areredder, and often much lai-ger or more pronounced than in the PLATE V
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KOEIN. 53 case of the Blackbird. Their eggs, too, vary generally in size,even in the same nest. Out of the contents of two nests I hadbrought to me a year or two since, no two seemed to agreeexactly in dimensions.—Fig. 12, plate II. 45. GOLDEN Om.0lj^^(0nolus galhuld).Only an unaccustomed summer visitor. IV. SYLYIADJE.46. ALPINE ACCENTOR—(^^^5;?^or Alpinm). Met with two or three times in Britain. 47. HEDGE-SPARROW—(^rocc^;?^ modularis). Hedge-warbler, ShufEe-wing, Dunnock, Hempie.—I cannotcall it Hedge-Accentor, with all my respect for Mr. Yarrell. Itwas Hedge-Sparrow in my childhood and youth, and Hedge-sparrow to me it will be called to the end of the chapter. Icould no more wantonly kill a Hedge-Sparrow, in my sparrow-killing days, than a Robin; and now, when I hear his low, sweetpipe, and see his wings quivered as he hops on the ground orfrom spray to spray not knowing I am noticing him, hS seems asdear to me as ever. The mossy nest, with its intermixture of fineroots and

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