1 8 ANNALS OF BIRD LIFE. 



plaintively on every side, and the crescendo notes 

 of the Wren are particularly sweet during the 

 early weeks of May. In the still, warm evenings 

 the Blackbird warbles, sometimes as he flies, or 

 as he skips about among the bluebells and ragged 

 robins in the marshy corners of the woods. 



We must not let the spring go by without 



visiting some of the many beautiful nests which 



are built at this season. One of the first birds to 



cross a twig in nest-building is the sombre little 



Hedge Hedge Sparrow. Its beautiful home is often 



laying, 5 th snugly placed amongst a heap of hedge clippings 



or in brushwood. It is made of green moss 



lined thickly with hair and wool and feathers, and 



the few twigs and roots round the outside lend it 



a rustic beauty peculiarly its own. In this nest 



the Hedge Sparrow lays five or six deep blue and 



spotless eggs. In a hole in some broken-down 



wall, or between the gnarled roots of a tree by 



the brook-side, or amongst the ivy on a bank, the 



Robins Robin builds its bulky cradle of dead leaves, dry 



begin to lay, ' J 



zoth April. g rasSj moss, rootlets and hair, in which she lays 



her six white eggs, thickly marbled with brown. 



Another nest that we are sure to come across in 



the orchards or the woods and hedges is that of 



chaffinches the Chaffinch. No bird architecture in Europe 



buiw, 5 th equals in beauty that of this gay little bird. The 



materials of the nest vary a great deal, but they 



are always beautifully arranged. Sometimes the 



walls of the nest are studded with silver lichens, 



at others bits of paper, spiders' webs, cocoons, 



