LECTURES. 45 



attention. Thus the golden-crested wren builds on the under side of 

 a spruce or yew bough. It begins by fixing a piece of cobweb and 

 moss to a certain spot and goes on adding to this till a strip some 

 six inches long hangs down from the bough. Then it takes the lower 

 end of this and fastens it to another point and thus forms a shng on 

 which the rest of the nest is built. 



Last Spring boys were continually bringing the lecturer tits' eggs 

 to identify, but no one can tell with certainty whether an egg is a 

 cole tits', a blue tits' or a marsh tits'. You must see the birds when 

 you find the nest. A blue tit you can of course distinguish at once 

 but marsh tits and cole tits must be seen close or may be mistaken 

 for one another. The cole tit's head is white on the sides, black on 

 the crown, chin and throat, and the bird has a white patch on the 

 back of the neck. The marsh tit has the top of its head all black 

 and the throat white with the exception of a tiny patch of black 

 under the bill. 



If you find a tit's nest in a hole in the ground or close to the 

 ground it is almost sure to be a cole tit's and not a marsh tits'. All 

 three tits will cut out holes in dead stumps and pollards just like a 

 woodpecker. 



A wagtail's nest needs careful searching for as the bird is ex- 

 tremely watchful, and particularly is this true of yellow wagtails. These 

 birds build their nests out in the middle of a fallow, or a grass field, 

 or in young corn, and you can never get near enough to see the bird 

 get off the nest. The cock is always on the watch and as soon as you 

 show yourself he lets the hen know and she runs off the nest and 

 nothing will induce her to return while you are anywhere near. But 

 if you have sufficient patience and can see far enough the cock will 

 go to the nest and you will see somewhere about where the nest is 

 and must then hunt about for it. 



On the other hand some birds are remarkably confidential about 

 the locality of their nests, the red backed shrikes or butcher birds are 

 probably the most foolish ones of all, they build in thick hedges 

 and isolated bushes in the fields and are generally to be seen and 

 heard near their nests, or if he happens to be at some distance from 

 them and the hen is sitting, the cock bird will fly and sit on the bush 

 where the nest is. It seems probable that they begin sitting as soon 

 as the first egg is laid, as all the eggs that the lecturer had blown 

 from the same nest have been of different degrees of hardness and 

 the hen is always to be seen on the nest. 



