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48 ORNITHOLOGY AND OOLOGY. 
dance of food (field-mice), I concluded that this would be 
selected as a breeding-place, and watched accordingly. 
The male was very attentive to his mate, often talking to 
and caressing her. If she should alight on the ground or 
on a fence-rail, he would alight with her, and often fly and 
walk around her, bowing and chattering in a ludicrous 
manner. After a situation (luckily where I could watch 
them unobserved) was fixed upon for a nest, both birds 
were very active in its construction. It was built on a 
hummock, perhaps eighteen inches above the level of the 
meadow. The materials used in its construction were 
dried grasses, which were woven together rather neatly. It 
was considerably hollowed,— perhaps an inch and a half, — 
and lined with very soft grass. The external diameter of 
the nest was about eighteen inches; internal diameter, 
about eight inches. The female laid four eggs of a dirty- 
white color, with'a faint tinge of blue. In one specimen 
there were a few faint spots of brown; but I think that 
generally the eggs of this species are without spots.t I 
have seen a great many, and but a very few had spots, and 
these not at all distinct. A great number of specimens 
exhibit a variation of from 1.62 to 1.90 inch in length, and 
from 1.82 to 1.25 inch in breadth. The habits of this bird 
entitle it to the protection of the farmer. It subsists almost 
entirely upon the injurious field-mice, and the numbers of 
these animals which it destroys in the breeding season are 
incredible: from early dawn to dim twilight it may be seen 
busily searching for these pests, seldom molesting the small 
beneficial birds or poultry. 
1 Dr. Brewer, in describing the eggs of this species, says: ‘‘ With but a single 
exception, all these eggs (six) are very distinctly blotched and spotted. Their 
ground-color is a dirty bluish-white, which in one is nearly unspotted; the markings 
so faint as to be hardly perceptible, and only upon close inspection. In all the 
others, spots and blotches of a light shade of purplish-brown occur, in a greater or 
less degree, over their entire surface. In two, the blotches are large and well 
marked; in the others, less strongly traced, but quite distinct. This has led to a 
closer examination of eggs from other parts of the country, and nearly all are per- 
ceptibly spotted.” 
