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branch, which is too elevated for being clipped and rounded 

 by the browsing of sheep, or the nibbling of hares and 

 rabbits ; and he is ever and anon flinging himself a few feet 

 into the air, hovering over the bushes, flitting now here, 

 now there, like a butterfly over a bed of flowers, or a dragon- 

 fly over the margin of a brook, and chanting his little song, 

 sweet and persuasive, but low, and tuned to the short 

 distance at which it may be heard by his mate under the 

 shade of the evergreen bower. 



That soft but sweet song is almost the first that is heard 

 on the bushy margins of the extensive heaths. The robin 

 and the wren are, indeed, before it ; but when they depart 

 from the cottages, they are in the wild woods; the thrush is 

 in the grove, and the sky-lark is hovering over the fields 

 below; so that the 'stone-chat alone supports the vernal 

 song in those places which it is peculiarly healthy and plea- 

 sant to visit at the opening of the vernal season. It sings, 

 *too, till you are almost close upon it, and then drops so 

 perpendicularly, that you imagine you have no more to do 

 than stoop, lift the side branch, and pick it up; but it glides 

 through the bushes like magic, and before you have examined 

 the half of one bush, it rises from another part, hovering and 

 singing again, and foils all attempts at capture, or a near 

 view of it, otherwise than on the wing. 



The nest is under a bush, secured from the rain, and 

 hidden from sight ; and though, if you start a female from a 

 bush after the male has begun to sit on the tops, and 

 " chert" his peculiar note, you may be sure that there is a 

 nest you cannot discern, from the escape of the bird, which 

 part of the bush it is in, or whether it is at all in the one 

 from which she rose. The nest is of moss and dried grass, 

 lined with hair or feathers, or very frequently with wool. 

 The eggs are never more than six ; they are greenish-blue? 

 with small spots of reddish-brown at the thick ends. 



