70 BRITISH BIRDS. 



have more love for their fruit-beds than for their destroyers. The trappers 



who go about Highgate on Sunday mornings are chaffinch-peggers, and their 



decoy birds without eyes are stuffed Chaffinches, fastened on a short stick, 



which is provided with a steel prick, so that it can be stuck on to a tree or 



a wooden rail. For nearly 50 years I have heard the tale of blinding birds ; 



but I never saw one blinded, and never knew any one that practised it. I 



maintain that where bricks and mortar have not crowded them out, as on 



Penge Common, birds are as plentiful this spring as ever. The only thing 



that really makes a sensible diminution is long-continued hard frost in 



winter. 



" I am, Sir, yours respectfully, 



" London, S.W." " J. GeORGE EccARIUS." 



Respecting the thorn theory connected with this bird, mentioned by 

 Shakespeare (vide Mr. Harting's book, p. 126), I can only say that when 

 finished I never found any thorn in a Nightingale's nest ; and I have looked 

 into a great many. In the case of a Kestrel's eggs laid in the old habitation 

 of a Magpie in an oak tree, May 7, 1864, one out of four had a curious hole 

 in the shell, and it appeared to me that while soft a thorn went through the 

 shell. The claw of the parent, however, might have caused the perforation. 



MELIZOPHILUS UNDATUS (Boddaert)*. 



(Dartford Warbler.) 



May 1, 1869. Went to a hill outside Brighton. Took a nest and four 

 eggs, the last laid this morning ; the hen was on. It w^as placed about 

 one and a half foot from the ground in the furze near a cut or ride. A 



* " Motacilla undata, Boddaert, Table des Planches Enluminees, p. 40. no. 655, fig. 1 (1783)." 

 Newton's Yan-ell, vol. i. p. 398. 



