168 BIRDS OF SOMERSETSHIRE. 



The nest is usually on or near the ground, under 

 cover of a bush, on the side of a thick hedge-row, 

 or on the rough bank of a brook: it is made of 

 inoss, roots and hair. 



The Yellowhammer is, as I have said before, 

 a very bright and beautiful bird, and has hardly 

 been done the justice to that it would have been if 

 it had been a foreigner or rare accidental visitor. 

 The beak is bluish horn-colour; irides dark brown; 

 the whole of the head, nape, cheeks, ear-coverts and 

 throat very brilliant yellow, with a few black streaks 

 on the head, nape and ends of the ear-coverts, and a 

 few reddish brown spots under the ear-coverts ; just 

 under the yellow is a narrow sort of band of olive- 

 green; the feathers of the back have the centres 

 dark dusky, with broadish margins of light rusty, 

 tinged with yellow; scapulars the same; wing- 

 coverts nearly black in the centre, margined with 

 reddish rusty, shaded nearly to white on the tips ; 

 rump and tail-coverts chestnut-red ; primary quills 

 dark dusky, very narrowly edged on the outer web 

 with yellow ; secondaries and tertials the same, mar- 

 gined, most broadly on the tertials, with rusty red ; 

 tail-feathers dusky, margined with rusty yellow, ex- 

 cept the two outer feathers, which have the greater 

 part of the inner web white and part of the outer 

 yellowish white ; breast, belly and under tail-coverts 

 bright yellow, palest on the under tail- coverts, and 

 spotted on the breast with dull dusky ; flanks rufous 



