26 SPRING 



unused nests at times for purposes of rest or feeding. These 

 fierce birds show frequent traces of artistic feeling — that is 

 to say, they have pleasure in bright colour and in shapes 

 that happen to take their fancy. When kites were common, 

 they were notorious for stealing linen to prank their nests 

 with ; the kite took much the same pleasure in adorning its 

 nest with dish-clothes as the chaffinch in systematic em- 

 broidery with bits of lichen. Newspapers and other con- 

 spicuous odds and ends are commonly found in kites' nests on 

 the Continent. The honey-buzzard used to line its nest with 

 green leaves and twigs ; and these, too, were apparently 

 chosen for their bright colour rather than for purposes of 

 comfort. The golden eagle occasionally fixes a green spray 

 into the walls of its eyrie in much the same way. In an old 

 crow's nest in which a kestrel was sitting on six eggs, we 

 have found a quantity of small grains of white and yellow 

 quartz, which had also apparently been collected for their 

 bright appearance. It would be hard to prove that hawks 

 have an eye for the beauty of their own eggs ; but many of 

 them are among the most beautiful laid by any bird, with 

 their bold deep red markings. 



The nearest relations of hawks and eagles are the owls, 

 which take their place as birds of prey after sunset, while 

 the little owl and short-eared owl hunt by day as well. The 

 harriers are the most owl-like of the hawks in the shape of 

 head and eye ; and they form an individual group, with 

 nesting habits and eggs unlike those of the rest of the tribe, 

 and much nearer to the owl's pattern. They lay their eggs 

 hidden among rough grass and heather and sedges as the 

 short-eared owl does, and their eggs are unspotted and 

 nearly white, without the bold blood-stains which mark all 

 the other hawks' eggs more or less conspicuously. The 

 general rule that spotted eggs are laid in open situations 



