THE FAERY YEAR 



redbreast building. The male bird did not aid, 

 I think, after the site was chosen a shelf of an 

 outhouse in the midst of some sacking. The first 

 two eggs laid by this robin were of the usual type, 

 speckled thick with minute brown marks. On the 

 third morning I found in the nest an egg utterly 

 unlike a robin's. The ground colour, a pale lilac 

 wash, reminding one of the ground colour of 

 some chaffinch's or linnet's eggs. At the larger 

 end chiefly were spots and specks of thin red-brown 

 and lilac. Was it the trick of some bird-nesting 

 boy who had removed the third redbreast egg and 

 substituted one of an early greenfinch or linnet ? It 

 seemed this could not be a redbreast's egg. But 

 on the fourth and fifth mornings I looked again, 

 and found two more eggs of quite a different type 

 from the first two, more boldly and sparsely spotted, 

 but undoubtedly redbreast eggs. No one, after 

 all, had tampered with this nest. Here were three 

 distinct varieties of redbreast eggs laid, I cannot 

 doubt, by the same bird. To see the beauty of 

 a redbreast's egg, one must hold it up to the light 

 when it is quite fresh. The shell of a bird's egg, 

 especially redbreast or grasshopper warbler, without 

 the fresh yoke inside, has lost most of its loveliness. 



Anthem of the Willow Wrens 



The April anthem of the willow wrens is an ex- 

 quisite incident of English bird life. On both sides 

 92 



