OUR EARER BRITISH: BREEDING BIRDS. GI 



pebbles, and road scrapings, and was as hard as 

 if it had had a quantity of cement mixed with it. 

 The entrance hole was at the bottom, where it 

 could not very well be shown in a photograph 

 taken from the roadway below. It measured one 

 and a quarter inches in horizontal and one inch in 

 vertical diameter. At the time the tree was figured, 

 on the 31st of last July, a pair of Sparrows were 

 busy building a nest of their own in the hole. I 

 examined a Nuthatch's nest in Sussex upon one 

 occasion, and could see the bird sitting on it, but 

 was unable to dislodge her. 



The nest is composed of leaves, flakes of bark, 

 and grass, and where the bird has to enlarge the 

 accommodation, of chips arid dust. The eggs, 

 numbering from five to eight or nine, are white 

 spotted with reddish-brown. They are similar in 

 size to those of the Great Tit, but the plastered 

 hole and the presence of the owner form a ready 

 and certain means of identification. 



OSPREY. 



THE Osprey is one of our rarest British birds, and 

 would in all probability have long since ceased to 

 breed within our shores but for the protection 

 afforded it by a few Scottish bird-loving proprietors. 

 As a migrant, it has, unfortunately, to run the 

 gauntlet of innumerable shot-guns, whose owners 

 miss no opportunity of grassing anything un- 

 common, every spring arid autumn, as it is on its 

 way to and from its breeding-quarters. 



It is an extremely interesting bird, and my 

 brother and I have both devoted many days to 



