168 BIRDS OF SOMERSETSHIRE. 
The nest is usually on or near the ground, under 
cover of a bush, on the side of a thick hedge-row, 
or on the rough bank of a brook: it is made of 
moss, roots and hair. | 
The Yellowhammer is, as I have said before, 
a very bright and beautiful bird, and has hardly 
been done the justice to that it would have been if 
it had been a foreigner or rare accidental visitor. 
The beak is bluish horn-colour; irides dark brown ; 
the whole of the head, nape, cheeks, ear-coverts and 
throat very brilliant yellow, with a few black streaks 
on the head, nape and ends of the ear-coverts, and a 
few reddish brown spots under the ear-coverts ; just 
under the yellow is a narrow sort of band of olive- 
green; the feathers of the back have the centres 
dark dusky, with broadish margins of light rusty, 
tinged with yellow; scapulars the same; wing- 
coverts nearly black in the centre, margined with 
reddish rusty, shaded nearly to white on the tips; 
rump and tail-coverts chestnut-red; primary quills 
dark dusky, very narrowly edged on the outer web 
with yellow; secondaries and tertials the same, mar- 
gined, most broadly on the tertials, with rusty red ; 
tail-feathers dusky, margined with rusty yellow, ex- 
cept the two outer feathers, which have the greater 
part of the inner web white and part of the outer 
yellowish white; breast, belly and under tail-coverts 
bright yellow, palest on the under tail-coverts, and 
spotted on the breast with dull dusky; flanks rufous 
