158 FAMILIAR WILD BIRDS. 



are scarcely marked at all. Our illustration may be taken 

 as a very good specimen of one kind of colouring and 

 marking, though a very pretty one might be given of an 

 entirely different colour and character. 



J €k<U r.< if, _, 



THE ROCK DOVE. 

 Ledges and fissures or crevices in sea-cliffs are the nesting- 

 places of this bird, which uses sticks, twigs, heath, and 

 dead grass for building purposes. Her eggs are two in 

 number, quite white. 



THE DOTTEREL. 



Mountain-tops in the North of England are the favourite 

 nesting-places of the Dotterel, which is now becoming 

 comparatively rare in districts where it was once common. 

 It uses no materials for nest-making, simply laying three 

 eggs in a slight cavity amongst woolly-fringe moss or other 

 mountain vegetation which affords some little concealment. 

 The eggs are of a dark cream or olivaceous-brown colour 

 thickly blotched or spotted with dark brown or brownish- 

 black. 



THE MARSH TIT. 



Holes in trees (generally willows or pollards), banks, &c, 

 are the places adopted by the Marsh Tit for its nest, which 

 is composed of moss, wool, and down from rabbits, or the 

 ripe catkins of willows. Her eggs number from six to 

 eight, or even as many as ten have been found. They are 

 white, spotted with red-brown, more thickly at the larger end. 



THE LITTLE AUK. 



The rocky shores of Spitzbergen, Greenland, and Iceland 

 form suitable breeding resorts for this bird, which makes no 



