162 BRITISH BIRDS. 
even the end, of April; it, however, rarely leaves its favourite district when 
once paired, and seldom wanders far until the young can fly. The site for 
the nest is chosen in a great variety of places: it is very often on some 
hedge-bank, gay with bluebells and other flowers, in a similar place to 
that which the Robin often chooses ; it is sometimes in tangled herbage at 
the foot of tall bushes, or amongst nettles and other coarse vegetation 
growing on waste land. The nest is most frequently built on the ground 
in a little cavity; but it is sometimes placed a considerable distance from 
it, in a gorse bush or amongst brambles and briars. The Yellow Hammer 
seems to be much attached to its nesting-site. Dixon has known a nest of 
this bird built in one situation for years, although it was repeatedly taken. 
Should the first egg be removed as soon as laid, the bird will generally 
continue to lay in the same place, even on the bare ground if the nest be 
destroyed; and an instance is on record where the bird hatched its eggs 
in such a situation. The nest, although somewhat slight, is well put 
together, and is made of dry grasses and a little moss, and lined with fibrous 
roots and horsehair. 
The eggs of the Yellow Hammer are four or five in number, purplish 
white in ground-colour, streaked, spotted, and dashed with rich purplish 
brown; the underlying markings, which are very numerous on some 
eggs, are pearly grey. The eggs vary considerably: some are dull 
purplish brown in ground-colour, faintly streaked and scratched with 
brown ; others are so thickly pencilled as to form an irregular network 
over the entire surface ; whilst a clutch of three in my collection are almost 
uniformly clouded with pale brown, over which are a few dark streaks. 
The streaks vary in breadth; some of them are finer than the finest hairs, 
others are very broad, and all are distributed in the most irregular manner, 
here and there appearing in a tangled mass connected together by one or 
two bold les. The eggs vary in length from ‘95 to °8 inch, and in 
breadth from ‘69 to ‘6 inch. Yellow Hammer’s eggs may be readily 
distinguished from those of the Cirl Bunting, the only eggs with which 
they are at all likely to be confused, by their much more purple colour ; 
the eggs of the Cirl Bunting are much greener, the spots are generally 
more bold and decided, and the thin streaks are not so numerous. The 
eggs of the Meadow-Bunting (a South-European species) sometimes much 
resemble those of the Yellow Hammer; but in that species the lines are 
generally more continuous, passing round and round the egg, and the 
smaller spots are seldom as numerous. ‘The male bird frequently sits 
upon the eggs, relieving the female; and even when not so engaged he 
is usually close at hand, warbling forth his droning song at intervals. 
When the nest is approached the bird often sits so closely as to allow herself 
to be touched by the hand ere flying off the eggs ; and sometimes the old 
bird feigns lameness to attract attention from its eggs or unfledged young. 
