32 EGGS AND EGG-COLLECTING. 
third time, before the first have flown. They are white 
and unspotted. She makes a very slight nest of sticks, 
hay, and sometimes of her own cast-off feathers. She 
select barns, old ruins, hollow trees, and crevices of rocks, 
overshadowed by ivy or creeping plants. 
———— —— 
THE CROSS-BILL. 
Tats bird lays four or five eggs of a white colour, tinged 
with pale blue, resembling the colour of skim-muilk, and 
speckled with red, but only very sparingly. Her nest is 
made of twigs, grass, and sometimes lined with a few 
long hairs. She builds mostly among the branches of 
the Scotch fir, the nest being generally close to the boll 
or stem. 
THE WOODLARK. 
UntikE its congener, the Skylark, this bird is limited 
to certain localities in our islands. Whilst it is fairly 
abundant in some districts, it is seldom or never seen in 
others. It is highly esteemed as a song-bird, and conse- 
quently suffers at the hands of professional bird-catchers, 
especially as its young begin to carol at an early period of 
their existence. Its nest is situated on the ground, usually 
well concealed beneath a tuft of grass or low plant, and 
is composed of grass, bents, moss, and hairs, the coarser 
material used on the outside and the finer to line the 
interior. The eggs are four or five in number, of a lighter 
ground colour than the Skylark’s eggs, thickly speckled 
with reddish-brown, the spots sometimes, but rarely, 
forming a zone at the larger end. 
