EGGS OF BRITISH BIRDS. 199 



the south of France, and entirely absent from Spain. It is 

 common in Denmark, the Baltic Provinces and South Scan- 

 dinavia, but becomes much rarer further north, the limit of its 

 range in Norway being lat. G7°, and in Sweden and West Eussia 

 about 65°. On the Urals it is said only to range as far north as 

 57°, and it has been recorded east of those mountains from the 

 valley of the Tobol. 



The nest of this Warbler is a very beautiful one, and is 

 generally built in the fork of a small tree eight or ten feet 

 from the ground. It is composed of dry grass deftly inter- 

 woven with moss, wool, spiders' webs, thistle-down, strips of 

 bark and lichen, lined with fine roots, grass-stalks and horse-hair. 

 The eggs are four or five in number — very rarely six. They are 

 brownish-pink in ground-colour, evenly spotted and more rarely 

 streaked with very dark purplish-brown, which occasionally 

 approaches black. The underlying markings are very indistinct, 

 and some specimens are very finely streaked with lighter brown. 

 Some eggs have the spots much smaller and finer than others. 

 They vary in length from 0"78 to 065 inch, and in breadth from 

 06 to 05 inch. 



THE BARRED WARBLER. 

 (Sylvia nisoria.) 



Plate 52, Fig. 11. 

 The present species has been recorded at least eight times in 

 Great Britain. It nests in South Sweden, as well as in Germany 

 east of the Rhine, Transylvania, South Russia, Persia, and Tur- 

 kestan, as far east as Yarkand. 



The nest is not like that of most Warblers, a slender structure, 

 so loosely made as to be semi-transparent, but is somewhat bulky 

 and compact. It is composed of dry grass-stalks and roots, with 

 generally some small-leaved plants, cobwebs, thistle-down, or 

 other woolly material mixed with it. Outside it is rough enough, 

 but inside it is very neat and round, rather deep, and lined with 

 a few fine roots, cobwebs, or horse-hair. 



The eggs are usually four or five in number, and, in rare in- 

 stances, six ; they are laid in the last week of May. They are 

 very characteristic, and cannot easily be confounded with those of 

 any other Warbler. The ground-colour is dull bufnsh-white ; the 



