CHIFF CHAFF. 113 



peas, or a bed of ground-growing wild plants. I have seen 

 one on the top of a wall in Londesborough Park, at a 

 height of six feet from the ground; and on being dis- 

 turbed, the bird built a little farther on in some ivy 

 against the side of the wall, about four feet up it. The 

 same has been known before. 



The eggs, usually seven in number, are more than 

 ordinarily rounded at the larger end, and pointed at 

 the smaller. They are hatched in thirteen days: they 

 do not vary much, and are of a white ground colour, 

 with very small dots and spots of blackish red or purple 

 brown, chiefly at the thicker end, which they sometimes 

 surround in the way of a zone or belt. Mr. Neville 

 Wood saw a nest which contained five eggs of the usual 

 colour, and the sixth pure white. The shell is very thin, 

 and but little polished. The eggs are laid towards 

 the middle or end of May, and the young birds are 

 fledged about the middle of June: they quit the nest 

 early. 



Incubation lasts thirteen days, and the male occa- 

 sionally relieves the female at her post. Two broods 

 are sometimes reared in the season. 



VOL. ir. Q 



