186 BRITISH BIRDS' NESTS. 



Wing-qnills brown, barred with pale buff. Tail- 

 coverts and two centre quills brown, barred with 

 rusty-red, remaining tail-feathers rusty-red ; chin 

 and throat bright rust-colour ; neck, breast, and 

 sides bluish-grey, freckled with a darker tinge of 

 the same colour, marked on the breast with a 

 horseshoe of rich bay, and barred on the sides with 

 the same colour ; under tail-coverts pale rusty- 

 brown. Legs and toes bluish-grey ; claws black. 



The female is a trifle smaller than the male, 

 and the rust-colour on her head is neither so 

 extensive nor so bright, and the lesser and medium 

 wing coverts and scapulars are marked with buff 

 cross-bars, a feminine distinction first observed by 

 Mr. Ogilvie Grant. 



Hit/i(iti(vi and Localifij. — -On the ground at the 

 bottom of a hedge (as in our illustration), amongst 

 mowing grass, clover, standing corn, weeds, brackens, 

 rough grass, and brambles. In ploughed fields, 

 pasture lands, on the outskirts of woods, and in 

 grass fields. Plentiful in cultivated districts, where 

 preserved, but less numerous in high moorland dis- 

 tricts, from which I have known the bird banished 

 for years together by an exceptional^ hard winter. 

 In all suitable districts throughout the British 

 Isles. Sometimes curious sites are chosen by this 

 bird for its nest, such as on the thatch of a shed ; 

 and Booth mentions finding a Linnet's nest in the 

 side of a stack, and that of a Partridge on the 

 thatch of another close to it. I see, however, from 

 my notes, compiled from the Field, that the latter 

 is by no means an uncommon situation. 



Materials. — A few blades of dry grass, bits of 

 bracken or dead leaves, used as a lining to the 

 slight hollow selected. 



Eggs.— Ten to sixteen or twenty; as many 



