M B1UTISH BIRDS 



over the entire egg ; and sometimes tine hairlike lines are mixed 

 with the spots. 



A small warbler, closely resembling the grasshopper warbler in 

 its language and habits, and once an indigenous British species, is 

 Locustella luscinioides, locally known as the reelbird, red night- 

 reeler, and red craking night-wren, and in books as Savi's warbler, 

 after its discoverer. It bred regularly in the Norfolk Broads and the 

 fen districts in Lincolnshire down to about 1849, when it became 

 extinct. 



Hedge-Sparrow. 

 Accentor modularis. 



Crown ash-colour with brown streaks ; sides of neck, throat, and 

 breast bluish grey ; back and wings reddish brown streaked with 

 dark brown ; breast and belly buffy white. Length, five and a half 

 inches. 



Most people know that a sparrow is a hard -billed bird of the 

 finch family, and that the subject of this notice is not a sparrow, 

 except in name. It is, in fact, a soft-billed bird belonging to that 

 large and musical family which includes the nightingale, the red- 

 breast, and the warblers. ' How absurd, then, to go on calling it a 

 sparrow!' certain ornithologists have said from time to time. and 

 have re-named it the hedge-accentor. But, as Professor Newton 

 has said in his addition to Yarrell's account of the bird, a name 

 which has been part and parcel of our language for centuries, and 

 which Shakespeare used, ' is hardly to be dropped, even at the bidding 

 of the wisest, so long as the English tongue lasts.' Now, as the 

 English tongue promises to last a long time, it seems safest to retain 

 the old and, in one sense, incorrect name. Dunnock is another 

 common name for this species ; it is also called shuffle wing, from 

 the habit the bird has, when perched, of frequently shaking its wings. 



Among our small birds, the hedge-sparrow is regarded with some 

 slight degree of that kindly feeling, or favouritism, which is extended 

 to the robin redbreast, the swallow, and the martin. It is one of 

 the few delicate little birds that brave the rigours of an English 

 winter, and occasionally enliven that dead season with their melody. 

 "With the wren and missel-thrush, it is a prophet, in February, of 

 the return of brighter sunshine and lengthening days; and in hard 



