6 
off. At all seasons, but especially in winter, I have found their stomach to contain small seeds 
of various kinds and frequently those of grasses; but they also feed on insects, pupz, and larve. 
They use a great quantity of minute fragments of quartz and other hard minerals, which are 
seldom met with in the gizzards of the Sylvie; so that with respect to feeding they resemble the 
Larks and Thrushes. 
“They nestle from the middle of March to the beginning of May, choosing yery frequently a 
hedge, or a holly bush, but often contenting themselves with any low and moderately thick shrub; 
and as the nest is often completed before the leaves have made much progress, it is very liable to 
be destroyed by boys. It is bulky, from four and a half to five inches in diameter externally, its 
interior two inches and a quarter across, and nearly two inches deep. One before me is com- 
posed externally of a few hawthorn twigs, a great quantity of dry grass, and then a thick layer 
of moss. The lining is a quarter of an inch thick, and composed of hair of different kinds, with 
a considerable quantity of wool. Another is lined with horse- and cow-hairs, intermixed with a 
large quantity of the fur of the hare. The eggs, five or six in number, are of a fine greenish 
blue colour, and have an oval rather pointed form, with a glossy surface, their longitudinal 
diameter varying from nine to ten twelfths, the transverse from six and a half to seven twelfths. 
There are generally two broods in the season. Mr. Neville Wood remarks that none of our 
smaller British birds (the Field-Thrush excepted) will build in a tree or bush which already 
contains a nest, whether that nest be deserted or not. I have seen, however, in a honeysuckle 
bower three nests of small birds—namely, the Thrush, the Green Linnet, and the Hedge-Chanter. 
The Sparrows sometimes build among Rooks’ nests.” The Hedge-Sparrow feeds more especially 
on insects during the summer season, but in the autumn and early spring will, when insect food 
is scarce, eat various sorts of seeds, especially those which contain oil, as the poppy, and grass 
seeds of various sorts, Carex seeds, and those of Polygonum aviculare. It picks up insects on the 
ground, or from the bushes, and does not appear to catch winged insects. ‘The young are fed 
entirely on insects of various sorts, especially small caterpillars. Its call-note is sharp and some- 
what harsh, resembling the words ér2, trd, tirri; and its song, though not particularly high in 
quality, is agreeable and not altogether unvaried, being not unlike that of the Wren, though it is 
not so varied or sweet. According to Mr. Weir, a correspondent of Macgillivray’s, it sings during 
the night; for he writes as follows:—“In a holly hedge about thirty yards from my bedroom 
window, when I resided at Lauriston, near Edinburgh, I have again and again heard the male, 
about eleven o’clock, in the darkest evenings of autumn and winter, and even when it was cold 
and frosty, go through his usual notes. At the regularity of the time when he poured them 
forth, I have often been astonished.” “ Possibly,’ Macgillivray remarks, ‘this regularity may 
have depended upon that of my friend, who in retiring to bed may have sent a blaze of light 
through his window upon the hedge.” 
I will add no further description of the eggs of this familiar bird to that above quoted from 
Macgillivray; and, indeed, it is scarcely necessary to describe them at all, so well are they known 
to every schoolboy. 
The specimens figured and described are in my collection, excepting the young bird, the 
figure of which was taken from a live specimen in the possession of our artist, Mr. Keulemans. 
