1886-87.] Notes on Bird- Life. 13 



and comfortable habitation it is, while the contents, in the 

 shape of its complement of blue eggs, usually figure as the 

 first contribution to all amateur collections. Of all birds, one 

 would expect the hedge-sparrow to follow the beaten track, and 

 not to introduce any questionable innovation ; but this year 

 there was to be seen in Warriston Cemetery a hedge-sparrow's 

 nest built upon the ground, and covered to a certain extent by 

 one of those "in memoriam" circular glass-shades which are 

 placed at the head of graves, one end of which was propped up 

 by wires at the back. In this same cemetery last year there 

 flew past me and alighted close at hand a bird which, to all 

 appearance, was a great titmouse or ox - eye, but of such a 

 peculiar colour that I was fairly at a loss to name it. On 

 watching it for a minute or two, it suddenly disappeared, and 

 on examination I found it had gone into a hole in one of the 

 iron pillars surrounding some private ground, where its nest was 

 built, and that in the passage out and in it had got so impreg- 

 nated with rust that, as the saying goes, " its own mother would 

 not have known it." This year, in the Botanic Garden, the 

 Curator, Mr Lindsay, showed me a nest of one of these birds 

 inside an iron pump, where the birds had to go up the spout 

 every time they wished to visit their young. The nest and 

 contents were readily examined by lifting off the iron top ; but 

 the parent birds had so easily accustomed themselves to their 

 being taken notice of, that at the time I paid them a visit the 

 lady who was in charge disdained to desert her post, and 

 "fuffed" defiance at the intruders. A most interesting paper 

 could be written on the subject of birds' nests, dealing par- 

 ticularly with the curious freaks which possess almost all var- 

 ieties at times to build in out-of-the-way and unnatural places. 

 For instance, I found a blackbird's nest a short time ago in one 

 of the nurseries on the top of a large stone which had fallen 

 out of the dyke, in quite an exposed position, while all around 

 were hedges and shrubs where one would imagine the most 

 fastidious bird could find a place where she " safe her young 

 ones forth might bring." I remember also a robin-redbreast 

 which chose for itself so peculiar a nesting-place, that it was 

 only when the young ones by their cries gave up the secret 

 that we could find the nest. We were sure the nest was some- 

 where near the foot of some bushes at the bottom of a garden, 



