LECTURES. 41 



"BIRDS AND BIRDS-NESTING." 



BY C. MONTFORD, ESQ. 



HE term " birds-nesting " is one which the true lover of 

 birds instinctively dislikes. It seems to imply the 

 hunting of every bank, hedge and tree and the robbing 

 of every nest that is found, and such things are an 

 abomination to the true lover of birds. To such an 

 one there is an indescribable charm about an early 

 Spring morning, when you seem to have all the country to yourself 

 and you see and hear the first migrants, such as the Chiff-chaff, the 

 Cuckoo, and the Swallow. To such an one, too, there is a pleasure 

 in making a collection of eggs or of birds, not because he possesses 

 an egg of great pecuniary worth, or because it is one which many 

 collectors do not possess, but because each of his eggs has a history 

 and his collection is like a diary reminding him of days now long 

 gone by. 



The first thing for a collector to do is to get to know the birds by 

 their song, plumage and habits, and to be able in most cases to tell 

 the males from the females and the old from the young. He should 

 always make a point of making profuse notes on everything he sees 

 and hears in connection with birds, particularly of the dates of arrivals 

 of migrants and of the finding of nests, whether they are taken or 

 not, and also of the position and materials of the nests and any other 

 matters of interest about them. 



The bird-observer will find that birds do not always build in the 

 regulation places or with the regulation materials. For instance the 

 lecturer found a fly catcher's nest almost entirely built of cotton waste 

 and a chaffinch's nest suspended under a spruce low down like a 

 golden-crested wren's and all the eggs were blue. Robins will build 

 in kettles and cans on an ash heap and down rabbit holes. The 

 lecturer once found a wren's nest in an old boot that had been thrown 

 away and had stuck in an elder bush, and in India he had heard of 

 a kite which had built its nest entirely of wires off soda-water bottles. 

 In Norway he had seen magpies' nests in the woodwork under the 



