IN GARDEN, PARK, AND SHRUBBERY. 27 



we will content ourselves with a peep into those 

 big wind-rocked nests. The Rook is one of the 

 earliest birds to breed, beginning in favourable 

 seasons at the end of February, although the poor 

 birds often have to cease operations for a while 

 owing to severe weather. The nests are used 

 yearly, being patched up and cleaned each spring. 

 Those blown out during the past year are re- 

 newed, but not always in the same exact spot. 

 The nests are built of sticks cemented with mud 

 and turf, and then lined with moss, wool, dry 

 leaves, and feathers. They are rather flat, but 

 surprisingly firm and compact. The eggs vary 

 from three to five in number, and the normal 

 colour is bluish green, spotted and blotched with 

 greenish brown and gray. They vary consider- 

 ably in size and form and colour. All through 

 the laying and hatching season the Rooks are 

 noisy, busy birds, and when their young are being 

 reared, the bustle and tumult increase. Rooks 

 are most gregarious birds, very regular in their 

 movements, and at all seasons live in companies. 



The next most prominent birds of these places 

 are undoubtedly the Thrushes. No less than five 

 of the half-dozen truly British species of these 

 birds have their home and haunts therein, and, of 

 these, three habitually rear their young within 

 them. Perhaps the most noticeable of all is the 

 BLACKBIRD (Merula merula\ so well known by \yidei y 



1*1 1111 i 11 i MI distributed. 



his glossy black plumage and orange-yellow bill 

 as to need no further introduction. His loud and 

 noisy cry when flushed from the evergreens, the 

 garden, or the lawn, is too well known and too 

 frequently heard to be mistaken for the note of 

 any other species ; and his incessant pink-pink- 



