Birds. 7443 



Chiffchaff, Sylvia riifa. 



Situation. On or near the ground in hedge-banks ; nearly spherical 

 or oval, with a lateral opening. 



Materials. Dead grass, leaves and moss outside ; a profusion of 

 feathers in the interior. 



Eggs, 5, 6. White, with a few purple-brown specks. 

 Dartford Warbler, Sylvia provincialis, Temminck. 



Situation. Thick furze bushes, about two feet from the ground. 



^ Materials. "The nest is composed of dry vegetable stalks, par- 

 ticularly goose-grass, mixed with the tender dead branches of furze, 

 not sufficiently hardened to become prickly : these are put together in 

 a very loose manner, and intermixed very sparingly with wool. lu 

 one of the nests was a single partridge's feather. The lining is equally 

 sparing, for it consists only of a hw dry stalks of some fine species of 

 Carex, without a single leaf of the plant and only two or three of the 

 panicles. This thin, flimsy structure, which the eye pervades in all 

 parts, much resembles the nest of the whitelhroat."— Co/. Montagu, 

 Linn. Trans. " I possess eight nests of the Dartford warbler: they 

 all agree with Montagu's description, as far as the materials are con- 

 cerned, but they are much more compact than he describes them, and 

 not at all like the whitethroat's." — Mr. Bond. 



Eggs, 4—6. " The eggs are also similar to those of Sylvia cinerea 

 (the whitethroat), but rather less, weighing only 22 grains ; like the 

 eggs of that species they possess a slight tinge of green ; they are 

 fully speckled all over with olivaceous-brown and cinereous on a 

 greenish white ground, the markings becoming more dense and 

 forming a zone at the larger end."— Co/. Montagu, Linn. Trans. 

 " I have about twenty eggs of the Dartford warbler, and they are more 

 like those of the lesser whitethroat." — Mr. Bond. 



GoLDENCRESTED Regulus, Regulus cristatus. 



Situation. Suspended from the horizontal twigs of the spruce fir 

 or yew, rarely of other trees : several instances are recorded of this 

 bird breeding twice in the same nest (see Zool. 871). 



Materials. Moss and lichen, lined with feathers ; a very beautiful 

 and compact structure. Mr. Selby, as I think erroneously, described 

 this nest as spherical : I should call it a hollow hemisphere ; in this 

 not differing from the ordinary form of compact nests. 



Eggs, 6, 7. Rosy white or very pale brown, unspotted. 



Great Titmouse, Pants major. 



Situation. Holes in the trunks of trees, or of walls : on the former 

 Mr. Selby has this observation, " The excavation is made by the bird 



