TWITE. 113 



the former nor so soft as that of the latter. In the breeding-season, 

 when the male calls to the female, the note is supposed to resemble the 

 word twah-it or twite, whence its name. It is rather a late breeder, and 

 seldom has eggs before the middle of May. The nest is often built in the 

 heather, a few inches from the ground; very often it is placed in a 

 depression in the ground itself or on a ledge of rock ; but Capt. Elwes, 

 speaking of its breeding-habits in the Hebrides, says that it makes its 

 nest in a bush or in creepers against a garden wall. Saxby, in his ( Birds 

 of the Shetland Islands/ describes a nest built in a slight hollow under a 

 long strip of turf which had been nearly reversed by the plough. He 

 watched this nest in the process of construction, both parents working at it 

 during eight days. The unobtrusive Twite is often neglected by the oologist 

 for more attractive game. On the 28th of May, 1870, I took a nest with 

 four fresh eggs, between Moscar Bar and Strines, near Sheffield, during an 

 afternoon's ramble on the moors. The nest was in a niche on the edge of 

 the turf which had been cut to make a road, and the top of the nest was 

 level with the surface of the ground. The bird flew off the nest to a 

 small rock close by in the heather, where it remained for a long time, 

 giving me and my companion ample opportunity of examining it through 

 a binocular. It was a very pretty sight ; but not more than a dozen yards 

 further on, in a precisely similar situation, was the nest of a King-Ouzel. 

 In the course of the afternoon we found several more nests of the Ring- 

 Ouzel containing eggs, peeped into three or four nests of the Red Grouse, 

 took a nest of the Merlin containing five eggs, climbed up to a Sparrow- 

 Hawk's nest with six eggs, and examined a nest of the Kestrel, which we 

 took two days afterwards, together with a clutch of Golden Plover's eggs 

 and a forsaken nest of the Black Grouse, so that the poor little Twite, 

 really the most interesting of all, was almost forgotton. 



The nest of the Twite is beautifully finished inside, and is almost as neat 

 as that of the Lesser Redpole. When it is placed on the ground, the out- 

 side is of course built in to suit the cavity; but in a tree or amongst 

 heather the nest is somewhat large and clumsy outside, the foundation being 

 twigs of heather interwoven with grass-stalks, which alone form the upper 

 portion. Inside the cup is very small, not more than an inch and half 

 across and almost as deep. The lining is fine roots, sheep's wool, feathers, 

 hair- or thistle-down, sometimes two or three of these materials at once. 

 The number of eggs is usually five, very often only four, but occasionally 

 six. The eggs measure from '72 to '65 inch in length, by '53 to '47 inch 

 in breadth ; they are very pale greenish blue, and are indistinguishable 

 in their markings from eggs of the Linnet, except that perhaps they are 

 more often streaked. 

 The Twite is very similar to the Linnet, but is smaller, with a longer tail, 



that it looks almost as large, but slightly more slender. It has no 



VOL. II. I 



