)38 THE USEFUL BIRDS 



Should an infertile egg be laid, it is never cast out of the 

 nest, but is allowed to remain, and may often be found long 

 after the young have flown and the nest been abandoned. 

 Both sexes take part in incubation and in the rearing of the 

 young, the male bird taking as keen an interest in the process 

 as the mother bird. 



The nest of the Chat at times receives the unwelcome egg of 

 the Narrow-billed Bronze-Cuckoo, and too often the unfor- 

 tunate birds act in the capacity of foster-parents to the young 

 of this parasite. Quite recently I found an egg of this species 

 lying uncared for on the wide margin of a Chat's nest, where 

 either it had been unfortunately placed by the Cuckoo in its 

 hurry to deposit the egg, or, more probably, had been ejected 

 by the owners. 



Evidently these birds occasionally become attached to 

 a particular spot, for during three successive seasons I 

 noticed that two pairs built their nests at the bases of the 

 same two tussocks of grass. There were thousands of other 

 tussocks in the vicinity that could have been utihzed for the 

 same purpose without any special effort on the part of the 

 birds, yet during this period the favoured spots were 

 invariably chosen. 



Nest. — Open, cup-like, with broad Up and still broader base ; 

 made of grasses, and lined with animal hair or fine grass ; 

 placed close to the ground in a shrub, or on the ground under 

 a thistle or tussock. 



Eggs. — Three or four to a sitting ; white ground, with spots 

 of reddish-brown, inclined to form a zone towards the broad 

 end. Length, 0.65 inch ; breadth, 0.5 inch. 



