56 DUNNOGK 



lined with moss, and then with hair, grass, wool, or down, 

 or any appropriate substances at hand. 



The eggs, which are often seen so early as the beginning 

 of April, are four or five, rarely six in number, and of a 

 very elegant greenish-blue colour. Mr. Archibald Hepburn, 

 records in the Zoologist his having seen an egg of this 

 species, which was thrown out of the nest by the parents, 

 and was of a bluish white colour, mottled and speckled with 

 light brown ; it was much rounder than the usual shape, 

 and was empty inside. 



Two broods are reared in the year; preparations for one 

 being made about the middle of March, and for the latter, 

 at the beginning of May : three are sometimes hatched. 



Meyer, in his " British Birds," mentions his having seen 

 a nest on the 2ist of January, and that he found one with a 

 newly -laid egg in it on the 22nd of July. The same situation 

 is frequently resorted to from year to year. 



The Rev. H. A. Macpherson records, in his " Fauna 

 of Lakeland," that in 1888 he found a brood which did not 

 leave the nest until the 8th of September. 



