XQQ8 AND EGQ-COLLECTING. 31 



THE MOOK-HEN. 



THE eggs of this familiar and semi-domestic bird are from 

 eight to ten in number, of a pale brownish-grey, spotted 

 with umber-brown. This bird, like the duck, when leaving 

 the nest covers her eggs with flags and reeds, of which also 

 the nest is made. She builds among the sedges on the 

 banks of streams and ponds, and sometimes in trees. 

 Nests have often been found in willow-branches which 

 touch and float upon the water. 



THE NIGHTINGALE. 



THE eggs of this bird are from four to six in number, and 

 are usually of a yellowish olive-brown colour, unspotted, 

 but are occasionally found blue. Her nest is made of dried 

 leaves, lined inside with fine grass. It is situated on the 

 ground in woods and shrubberies, especially on the little 

 banks at the foot of trees, under the shelter of ferns or 

 weeds. 



THE LAPWING. 



THE Lapwing, or Green Plover, makes a very simple nest, 

 only scratching a hole and lining it with bent or short 

 grass. She generally makes it on a little knoll, so that it 

 may be ot of danger of being deluged, as her home is 

 generally in swampy marshy land. She lays four eggs of a 

 dirty-green ground, blotched all over with dark brown 

 spots, and the colour harmonises so well with the ground, 

 that it is sometimes very difficult for the collector to see 

 them even when looking close to where they are. 



THE BARN OWL. 



THE Barn Owl lays two eggs at a time, that is, lays two 

 and hatches them, and lays again, even to a second and 



