SOME TYPES OF BIRDS* NESTS 



975 



NEST OF ROBIN CONTAINING SIX WAGTAILS' AND FOUR 



ROBINS' EGGS. 



A pair of each bird visited the nest, which was built by Robins. 



surroundings, takes to exploration with 

 disastrous results to himself. Here we 

 may bring J03' to his parents' hearts by 

 restoring him to his family. 



If we are fortunate another youngster — 

 not a prodigal this time, but one might 

 perhaps be justified in saying a glutton — 

 a young Cuckoo filling, and often over- 

 filling, its foster-parents' nest, sitting with 

 gaping mouth all day long, thanklessly 

 taking the dainty tit bits its devoted 

 attendants so frequently bring ; and yet its 

 appetite remains insatiable. How many 

 times a day must they feed that greedy 

 mouth ! They have apparently very little 

 time to look to their own requirements. 



Yonder is a cock Linnet resplendent 

 in crimson breast and forehead. The 

 nest, not built in a furze bush as is so often 

 the case, but in a hawthorn hedge, is not 

 difficult to find, and as the branches are 

 slightly pulled to one side the eggs are 

 seen : white faintly tinged with blue, 

 spotted with reddish brown and purple. 

 Only a few yards farther the same hedge 

 yields another treasure, only much lower 

 down this time, amongst the tangled 

 vegetation — a Garden Warbler's home — 

 with four muddy white eggs stained and 

 spotted with light and dark greenish 

 brown. 



Farther on a hen Corn Bunting flies 

 from her lowly nest on the ground and 

 joins her mate sitting on the top of a 

 gate, plaintively singing, leaving her 

 eggs plain for us to view. 



****** 



During a nesting ramble one often 

 happens upon nests built in curious or 

 even unique situations, or possessing 

 something unusual, and rendered especially 

 interesting on that account. Such a 

 one is the mixed nest of a Robin and Pied 

 Wagtail here shown. It was found in 

 the side of a haystack, and it would appear 

 that the Robiijs. were responsible for its 

 formation, as the nest of the Wagtail is 

 not usually ^(^ neat as this specimen. 

 When discovered it contained two 

 Robins' and two Wagtails' eggs, and a 

 week later four Robins' and six Wagtails' 



The eggs of the Robin may be distin- 

 guished in the photograph by their mottled 

 appearance and more rounded shape. At 

 first both pairs of birds visited the nest, 

 the Wagtails coming on the scene as soon 

 as it was built, and being the stronger 

 birds eventually drove the Robins farther 

 afield. Incubation was undertaken by 

 the Wagtail, and it would have been very 

 interestmg to see how the " dish-washers " 



