93 

 THE ALPIKE ACCENTOR 



ACCENTOR ALPINUS. 



Head, breast, neck, and back ash-grey, the back marked with large brown 

 spots ; throat white, with small brown spots ; under plumage reddish, mixed 

 with white and grey ; wings and tail dusky brown, variegated with ash colour ; 

 lesser and middle wing-coverts tipped with white ; bill yellow at the base, black 

 at the point. Length, six and a tialf inches. Eggs greenish blue, without spots. 



Only a few specimens of this bird have been observed in 

 England. It frequents the mountainous districts of the 

 Continent, repairing in summer to elevations where birds 

 are almost as scarce as human inhabitants, and there 

 doubtless it is prized, not for its rarity alone, but for its 

 fearlessness of man. What circumstances can have induced 

 so decided a mountaineer, not migratory in habits, to visit 

 the lowlands of England, is difficult to conjecture; but 

 being here, we may account for its resorting to the towers 

 of Cambridge and Wells (where it has been shot) as the 

 best representatives it could find of Alpine crags. 



THE HEDGE SPAEEOW. 



ACCENTOR MODULARIS. 



Crown of the head ash colour, with brown streaks ; sides of the neck, throat, 

 and breast, bluish grey; wing-coverts and feathers on the back reddish brown, 

 with a tawny spot in the centre ; middle wing-coverts tipped with yellowish 

 white ; lower tail-coverts brown, with a whitish border ; middle of abdomen 

 white. Length, five and a half inches. Eggs greenish blue, without spots. 



Inveterate custom has so attached the name of Hedge 

 Sparrow to this bird, that in spite of all the efforts of 

 ornithologists to convince the world that it is no sparrow 

 at all (a hard-beaked, grain-eating bird), but a true warbler, 

 it is still more frequently called by its popular name than 

 by any of those that have been suggested. The gentle, inno- 

 cent, confiding, little brown bird, which creeps like a mouse 

 through our garden flower-beds, picks up a meagre fare in 

 our roads and lanes, builds its nest in our thorn hedges, 

 and though dingy itself, lays such brilliant blue eggs^ has 



