180 BIRDS OF TUNISIA 



The nesting season of A. fidva commences early in April and is 

 continued throughout that and the following month. The earliest 

 date on which I have taken a nest of the species, with eggs in it, has 

 been on April 9th. The nest, as a rule, is placed in a thick thorn- 

 bush, and is composed chiefly of bents and dry grasses, lined with 

 some soft substance such as vegetable-down, wool and hair, and often 

 with a piece of rag or cotton stuff, picked np probably near some Arab 

 douar or encampment. The eggs, from four to six in number, are 

 of a beautiful glossy blue-green, and unspotted. They vary consider- 

 ably in size and shape, being sometimes oval and at others almost 

 round. They are rather small for the size of the bird, their average 

 measurements being 24 x 18 mm. 



A. fulva is easily distinguished from its eastern congener, 

 A. squamiceps, by its brighter and more rufescent colouring, and by 

 its smaller size. 



Family ACCENTOEID^. 



ACCENTOR MODULARIS (Linuseus). 

 HEDGE-SPAEEOW. 



Motacilla modularis, Linn. Syst. Nat. i, p. 329 (1766). 



Accentor modularis, Bechst. Orn. Taschenb. i, p. 191 (1802); Sharpe, 



Cat. Binh Brit. Mils, vii, p. 649 ; Koenig, J. f. 0. 1888, p. 175. 

 Prunella modularis, Loche, Expl. Sci. Alg. Ois. i, p. 284 (1867) ; 



Koenig, J. f. 0. 1892, p. 374. 



Description. — Adult male, winter, from Sicily. 



Forehead, crown and nape brownish-slate ; back, scapulars and secondaries 

 rutous-brown, broadly streaked with blackish ; rump and upper tail-coverts 

 brown : primaries and tail blackish-brown, the former margined with rufous- 

 browu ; chin, throat and breast slate, lighter on the chin ; middle of the 

 abdomen whitish ; sides of the body and lianks rufous-brown, streaked with 

 darker brown ; under tail-coverts brown, broadly fringed with white. 



Iris and bill dark brown ; feet yellowish-brown. 

 ■ Total length 5-25 inches, wing 2-75, culmen "45, tarsus -75. 



Sexes alike. 



The Iledge-Sparrow, so familiar to us in England, is ol compara- 



