Birds by Land and Sea 



the way of song, which consists of two or three 

 repetitions of a note resembling the " trit" note of 

 the yellow-hammer, delivered monotonously as the 

 bird clings to a reed. The reed-bunting does not, 

 however, lack distinction in its looks, the black 

 head being boldly set off by a conspicuous white 

 collar, although the back, streaked with browns after 

 the manner of a sparrow, has in some parts of the 

 country earned for the bird the homely name of the 

 reed-sparrow. 



On the same day I put up a skylark, which had 

 embedded its nest in a tuft of grass upon a small 

 knoll in a meadow. This bird, perhaps because of 

 its habit of nesting in open places, is a more nervous 

 sitter than birds which build under cover, and but 

 for its getting up, while I was still some ten yards 

 from the nest, and flying low along the meadow, I 

 should probably have failed to discover it. The 

 skylark, when nesting, is also a very exclusive bird, 

 and as far back as the second week in April I had 

 watched the male bird clearing out undesirable visitors 

 from the neighbourhood of his nest. Upon a yellow- 

 hammer alighting upon a field path where the cock 

 lark was standing, the latter burst into song, then 

 charged the yellow-hammer at a run, causing it to 

 retreat. It then turned its attention to a large com- 

 pany of pipits in the grass, hovering about the field, 

 and, by dipping at any bird it came across, put them 

 up one by one. 



Whilst returning at evening from the lark's nest, 

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