birds when feeding never still for an instant, sometimes darting after some 

 passing insect, or chasing each other in and out among the twigs. In early 

 autumn I have seen them eat the ripe elder-berries which had fallen on the 

 ground, and I took the skins of four of these berries from the stomach of a 

 bird of the year. They are very fond of the small green caterpillars which 

 may be seen hanging by a silken thread from the leaves in summer. It has 

 a curious habit of choosing some particular tree as its abode, and I have heard 

 a male sing daily throughout the entire summer from the same tree. Its flight 

 is undulating, and it has a peculiar habit of dropping down with half-expanded 

 wing on to its perch, reminding one rather of the Tree Pipit. 



Nest-building commences in the end of May, eggs being laid in the last 

 few days of the month, or early in June. The nest is built always on the 

 ground. It is very difficult to find, and I have noticed that as a rule it is 

 some little way from the spot where the male is wont to sing. A small hollow 

 is usually prepared under the shelter of some tuft of grass or small plant. In 

 this the nest is built. It is semi-domed, like that of the Willow Wren, but 

 is never lined with feathers like the nest of that bird, being built of dry grass, 

 moss, and leaves, and lined with fine grass or horse-hair. 



From five to seven eggs are laid, which are most beautiful when perfectly 

 fresh. They are pure white in ground-colour, freckled and blotched with dark 

 purplish brown and underlying markings of violet grey. Some specimens are 

 much more handsomely marked than others ; on some the markings form a 

 zone round one end of the egg, on others they are confluent, and form large 

 pale blotches of purple, while some are entirely covered with minute specks. 

 They vary from 70 to "62 inch in length, and from '60 to "54 in breadth, and 

 can hardly be compared with the eggs of any other British bird ; some eggs 

 are like miniature eggs of the Common Swallow, but have no red-brown spots 

 like the eggs of that bird. 



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