166 BIRDS' NESTS. 



passed by, if I did not stop." The eggs, 

 from four to six, are of a bright greenish blue, 

 without spot or any other kind of marking, 

 about three quarters of an inch long, closely 

 resembling those of the hedge sparrow, from 

 which, however, they may be distinguished by 

 their deeper colour and nearer approach to 

 the spherical form. 



HEDGE SPARROW. Accentor modularis. 

 PLATE XII. FIG. 1. 



THIS, perhaps, is the most frequently de- 

 tected of all British birds' nests, and the one 

 at which the young oologist has first tried his 

 hand. No sooner does the quickset hedge 

 begin to bud, than the Hedge Sparrow lays 

 the foundation of its nest in the centre of the 

 thorny fence ; and before the leaf has fully 

 expanded, the bright blue eggs become even a 

 more conspicuous object than the nest which 

 contains them. The hedge sparrow, being a 

 scarcely less fearless and confiding bird than 



