EGGS AND EGG-COLLECTING. 62 
are scarcely marked at all. Our illustration may be taken 
as a very good specimen of one kind of colouring and 
marking, though a very pretty one might be given of an 
entirely different colour and character. 
THE ROCK DOVE, 
Lepezs and fissures or crevices in sea-cliffs are the nesting- 
places of this bird, which uses sticks, twigs, heath, and 
dead grass for building purposes. Her eggs are two in 
number, quite white. 
THE DOTTEREM.. 
Mountatn-tops in the North of Scotland are the favourite 
nesting-places of the Dotterel, which is now becoming 
comparatively rare in districts where it was once common. 
It uses no materials for nest-making, simply laying three 
egos in a slight cavity amongst woolly-fringe moss or other 
mountain vegetation which affords some little concealment. 
The eggs are of a dark cream or olivaceous-brown colour 
thickly blotched or spotted with dark brown or brownish- 
black. 
THE MARSH TIT. 
Hotes in trees (generally willows or pollards), banks, &c., 
are the places adopted by the Marsh Tit for its nest, which 
is composed of moss, wool, and down from rabbits, or the 
ripe catkins of willows. Her eggs number from six to 
eight, or even as many as ten have been found. They are 
white,spotted with red-brown, more thickly at the larger end. 
THE LITTLE AUK. 
THE rocky shores of Spitzbergen, Greenland, and Iceland 
form suitable breeding resorts for this bird, which makes no 
