24 BIRDS OF LANCASHIRE. 



arrival, but I think it probable they do if the weather 



be iine ; without hearing the song of a species like the 



present, it would be easy to miss its coming for some 



time. Although the nest is usually placed on the 



ground, it is found pretty often in a low bush where 



there is not much thick grass, and Baron von Hiigel 



reports {ZooL, 1872) an instance where he saw a nest 



placed on the extremity of a branch of a small fir, 



16 feet from the ground : Mr. T. Altham also once 



found one wedged on the top of two branches of a 



spruce fir, 14 feet from the ground. The nest is domed 



at first, but when the young are hatched, their weight 



soon makes the dome disappear. The bird shows great 



attachment to its home, and in Eennie's Field Naturalist 



for April 27th, 1833, a correspondent signing " Kose, 



Blackburn," relates how one insisted upon returning 



to the nest, repairing it, and laying more eggs, after a 



lot of ducks had pulled it in pieces. Mr. Thomas Fry 



of Liverpool {Xat. Scraj) Booh, pt. 3) gives a similar 



incident, where a Willow-Warbler stuck to its nest after 



it had been demolished by a terrier. The eggs are 



seven or eight in number, and are usually laid in May ; 



the spots on them are red, in contradistinction to the 



purple-black ones on the Chiffchaff's. The two species 



may almost always be separated (Seebohm, Ibis, 1877, 



p. 66) by the varying lengths of the primary quill : in 



the Willow-Warbler the second is intermediate in length 



between the fifth and sixth, but in the Chiifchaff it is 



considerably shorter than the sixth. 



