422 Natural History Notes. [Sess. 



Yl.— NATURAL HISTORY NOTES. 



By Mr EGBERT STEWART, S.S.C. 



{Read Feb. 25, 1S91.) 



At this season of the year, when blackbirds, mavises, and 

 starlings visit our back-greens, and pick up the early worm ; 

 when robins disappear from our ken, and when the ubiquitous 

 sparrow keeps up an incessant medley in the solitary evergreen 

 — we naturally look back with longing to the time when 

 business cares were an unknown quantity, and when we were 

 so situated that we could transport ourselves at pleasure to the 

 open country, and there experience all the delights of a nest- 

 hunting expedition. Though this pleasure is now impossible 

 to most of us, still it is quite practicable to revisit in spirit the 

 scenes of our former exploits, and for a few minutes, therefore, 

 let us try the experiment. 



Leaving the town, we get without difficulty to a real old- 

 fashioned country road, flanked on either side by a thorn 

 hedge. We climb over a gate into one of the adjacent fields, 

 with the view of searching the hedge from the field side, being 

 aware that the well-known ingenuity of the nest-builders will 

 have been principally concerned in protecting their habitations 

 from the gaze of those passing along the highway. "We have 

 hardly gone a few steps before a nest is observed, and without 

 much trouble it is reached, and found to contain four small 

 blue eggs, while the owner thereof, a hedge-sparrow, hops 

 fussil)^ among the twigs almost within our reach. Proceeding 

 a little farther, we come to a dry ditch, out of which a bird 

 gets up unexpectedly, and it is only after a search, which we 

 had almost given up as hopeless, that the nest of the yellow- 

 hammer is found, cunningly hid amongst the long grass at the 

 side, and containing two eggs, with their peculiar pencil-like 

 markings. The " deil's bird " is in no favour with country 

 people, and consequently many nests are wantonly destroyed, 

 but in this instance we leave the nest undisturbed, to the great 

 relief of the owner, who flits anxiously around. There are 

 several old and decayed trees growing by the side of the road 



