6& TUE SMALLER BRITISH BIRDS. 



seen at the same time, the pair frequenting the grass plots of the 

 college, and climbing about its buttresses, in the tame and confiding 

 manner which is characteristic of the bird. The other three specimens 

 were found in Somerset, Suffolk, and Devonshire. 



The nest of this bird, which is made of moss and fine grass, lined 

 with wool or hair, is generally built iu some lonely place, in a roclcy 

 cavity or crevice, and sometimes under the shelter of a low bush, such 

 as the Alpine rose, and has been found iu the roof of a lonely house, 

 but not often. The eggs are four or five in number, of a beautiful 

 light blue colour, and unspotted, like those of the species next to 

 be described, only somewhat larger; the bird is said to produce two 

 broods in the year. Seldom is this pretty Chanter seen in the 

 branches of trees, but generally either on the ground or slight rocky 

 elevations, where it will stand and shuffle its wings in a manner 

 peculiar to the members of its genus, uttering its ordinary note tree, 

 tree, or breaking into a low sweet warble. Insects, such as flies, 

 grasshoppers, earwigs, ants, &c., are its ordinary food, with small 

 seeds now and then for a change. 



THE HEDGE ACCENTOR, 



{^Accmlor modularis.^ 

 PLATE V. — FIGDllS II. 



Sometimes called the Hedge Sparrow, or Dunnock; also known as 

 the Hedge Warbler, Shuffle-wing, and Winter Fauvette. A singing 

 bird, as the scientific name indicates, with a sweetly modulated song; 

 retiring in its habits, without being particularly shy, gentle in its 

 motions and manners, not fussy and fantastic as some birds are, but 

 with a sort of subdued cheerfulness about it, like that arising from a 

 contented spirit, with a neat, yet pretty dress of grey and brown, the 

 latter flushing into red at j)laces, and the former deepening into blue, 

 as in the head, nape, throat, and breast. It builds its deep, well-rounded, 

 and finished nest of small twigs and grass, then, on the inner side, 

 moss, and on that some softer substance, such as wool or linir, in 

 hedges or low bushes, or in holes of walls, stacks of woodj or amid 



