and some other British Birds. !<).< 



they actually began a new nest the day after they were deprived 

 of the only surviving young. 



The nest appeared to be finished on the ipth, but it possessed 

 only one egg on the 21st in the afternoon, and on the 26th ii 

 contained four, when the nest and cs^s were secured. 



This nest was placed near the top of the furze, in the thick- 

 est part, about four feet from the ground, but so well con- 

 cealed that, although the birds were repeatedly seen to 

 fly in with building materia^ in their bills, if was with the 

 greatest difficulty found. The continued flirting of these 

 birds from bush to bush, and through them, is so extremely de- 

 ceitful, that it is scarcely possible to notice the spot, amongst 

 such an uniformity of cover, where they deliver the contents of 

 their bill, especially as they frequently retire from a very different 

 part. 



Like the other, this nest is composed of dry vegetable stalks, 

 particularly goose grass ; mixed with the tender dead branches 

 of furze, not sufficiently hardened to become prickly; these are 

 put together in a very loose manner, and intermixed very 

 sparingly with wool. In one of the nests was a single partridge's 

 feather. The lining is as sparing, for it consists only of a few 

 dry stalks of a fine species of carex, without a single leaf of 

 the plant, and only two or three of the panicles. 



This thin flimsy structure, which the eye pervades in all parts, 

 much resembles that of the whitethroat. The eggs are also 

 somewhat similar to those of Sylvia cinerea, but rather less, 

 Aveighing only 22 grains ; like the eggs of that species, they pos- 

 sess a slight tinge of green ; they are fully speckled all over 

 with olivaceous-brown and cinereous, on a greenish-white 

 ground, the markings becoming more dense, forming a zone at 

 the larger end. 



vol. ix. 2 c Whether 



