164 FIELD-STUDIES OF RARER BIRDS 



their foundations, narrowing, however, up to 

 about two feet : but a typical example is from a 

 few inches (this generally on rocks) to a foot and 

 a half in height, about two feet six inches across, 

 with an " egg-basin " from ten inches to twelve 

 inches across by 3^ in. in depth. 



In the ground-work sticks (living and dead), 

 twigs, and heather find place, while the normal 

 lining in fact, it occurs in all nests is of dried 

 cotton-grass (tufts or blades) or wood-rush, some- 

 times both ; but in different eyries I have noted 

 the following miscellany : fragments of bark about 

 two inches square, fir and larch sprigs, moss, dead 

 bracken, wild thyme, ivy, and other green vegeta- 

 tion such as freshly-plucked branchlets of oak, 

 birch, hawthorn, and ash. Some nests are 

 upholstered over the dried grass with an 

 emerald carpet of larch sprays, usually when the 

 nest is in a larch ; sometimes with the more 

 sombre green of the Scots fir. The buzzard, 

 indeed, appears to have a decided leaning towards 

 the artistic, and I can scarcely recollect a nest 

 which was not at one time or another for material 

 is added daily right through the period of incuba- 

 tion, and until the young have flown graced \vith 

 green foliage of some sort, which is frequently 

 woven roughly into the rim. Now and then a 

 scrap of wool is seen in the lining or clinging to the 

 sticks of the eyrie, but it is more than doubtful if 

 this substance is taken there intentionally, the 



