162 BRITISH BIRDS. 



even the end, of April ; it, however, rarely leaves its favourite district when 

 once paired, and seldom wanders far until the young can fly. The site for 

 the nest is chosen in a great variety of places : it is very often on some 

 hedge-bank, gay with hluebells and other flowers, in a similar place to 

 that which the Robin often chooses ; it is sometimes in tangled herbage at 

 the foot of tall bushes, or amongst nettles and other coarse vegetation 

 growing on waste land. The nest is most frequently built on the ground 

 in a little cavity ; but it is sometimes placed a considerable distance from 

 it, in a gorse bush or amongst brambles and briars. The Yellow Hammer 

 seems to be much attached to its nesting-site. Dixon has known a nest of 

 this bird built in one situation for years, although it was repeatedly taken. 

 Should the first egg be removed as soon as laid, the bird will generally 

 continue to lay in the same place, even on the bare ground if the nest be 

 destroyed ; and an instance is on record where the bird hatched its eggs 

 in such a situation. The nest, although somewhat slight, is well put 

 together, and is made of dry grasses and a little moss, and lined with fibrous 

 roots and horsehair. 



The eggs of the Yellow Hammer are four or five in number, purplish 

 white in ground-colour, streaked, spotted, and dashed with rich purplish 

 brown ; the underlying markings, which are very numerous on some 

 eggs, are pearly grey. The eggs vary considerably : some are dull 

 purplish brown in ground-colour, faintly streaked and scratched with 

 brown ■ others are so thickly pencilled as to form an irregular network 

 over the entire surface ; whilst a clutch of three in my collection are almost 

 uniformly clouded with pale brown, over which are a few dark streaks. 

 The streaks vary in breadth ; some of them are finer than the finest hairs, 

 others are very broad, and all are distributed in the most irregular manner, 

 here and there appearing in a tangled mass connected together by one or 

 two bold lines. The eggs vary in length from '95 to -8 inch, and in 

 breadth from -69 to '6 inch. Yellow Hammer's eggs may be readily 

 distinguished from those of the Cirl Bunting, the only eggs with which 

 they are at all likely to be confused, by their much more purple colour ; 

 the eggs of the Cirl Bunting are much greener, the spots are generally 

 more bold and decided, and the thin streaks are not so numerous. The 

 eggs of the Meadow-Bunting (a South-European species) sometimes much 

 resemble those of the Yellow Hammer; but in that species the lines are 

 generally more continuous, passing round and round the egg, and the 

 smaller spots are seldom as numerous. The male bird frequently sits 

 upon the eggs, relieving the female ; and even when not so engaged he 

 is usually close at hand, warbling forth his droning song at intervals. 

 When the nest is approached the bird often sits so closely as to allow herself 

 to be touched by the hand ere flying off the eggs ; and sometimes the old 

 bird feigns lameness to attract attention from its eggs or unfledged young. 



