46 Our Bird Fr/exds. 



spanning a mountain torrent, if it cannot find a 

 suitable ledge behind or close to a waterfall ; but 

 occasionally I have found one in a tree, as shown in 

 our illustration (p. 41), which was recently secured in 

 Highlands of Scotland. Starlings rear their chicks 

 in trees, old ruins, thatches of ricks, holes in rocks, 

 and similar elevated situations, but I have found 

 nests on several occasions in holes in the ui'ound 

 and amongst loose stones. 



These instances of departure from nesting- rules 

 lead one on to the interesting cases of nests in 

 curious situations. Common Sparrows have been 

 found breeding in all kinds of strange places— from 

 the inside of a railwa}^ station gong sounded more 

 than one hundred times in twelve hours, to the 

 cartridge-box of a gun-carriage, in spite of the fact 

 that the piece was fired twice every day ; in a 

 stone lion's mouth, and in the skeleton of a 

 bullock's head. I have myself seen Robins' nests 

 in old cotf'ee-pots, teapots, kettles, watering-cans, 

 biscuit-boxes, jam-jars, hand-baskets, and the hubs 

 of cartwheels : also Tits' nests in street-lamps, letter- 

 boxes, old pumps, mowiug machine knife-boxes, and 

 packing-cases. The illustration on the precediug page 

 shows a Waterhen sitting on her nest built upon 

 the spring of an old cart which had been wheeled 

 into a pond and left there for a while. Last year 

 a Chaffinch built her nest under the chin of the 

 elfigy of a woman kneeling on the top of a grave- 

 yard monument, and was seen brooding just as 



