126 British Birds, with their Nests and Eggs. 



usually completed about the second week of May, and if a second is built it is 

 generally ready for eggs towards the end of July. Nests have frequently been 

 found with fresh eggs about the middle of June, but it would seem probable, in 

 such cases, that some mischance had befallen the first nest. 



I^ord Lilford gives an amusing account of his search after this bird and its 

 nest ; he says : — " The only close observations of this bird which I have hitherto 

 been able to carry out, were made in the early summer of 1856, on a rough piece 

 of furze and thorn-grown grazing-land adjoining Dartmoor in North Devon : there 

 I found the bird very common. I should say that there must have been at least 

 six or more pairs frequenting an area of perhaps twenty acres, but in spite of their 

 abundance and constant song, it was only by close watching in the early morning 

 that I was able to procure specimens for my collection ; the male bird at that time 

 will now and then creep out to the top of a furze-bush "reeling" or singing, and 

 if undisturbed perhaps remain for a minute or more, but on the slightest alarm 

 will disappear into the thickest covert he can find, and run like a mouse through 

 the most tangled herbage from one thicket to the next, never taking wing unless 

 absolutely forced to do so. In vain did we search for a nest, though, armed with 

 a bill-hook, and protected by garden- gloves, we plunged into masses of thorns, 

 furze, nettles, thistles, and other defensive vegetation into which we had after 

 patient watching traced one of these birds, tearing up the grass by handfuls, 

 lopping away live and dead furze, on hands and knees, morning, noon, and evening; 

 day after day we went home with perforated skins, perspiring and unsuccessful." 

 Birds of Northamptonshire, vol. i, p. 123. 



I could not resist quoting this ; it is so true an account of the discomforts to 

 which the zealous birdsnester cheerfully submits ; and, after all, I am not sure 

 that part of the joy of this branch of collecting does not consist in the successful 

 battling through thorns and briars, even though, after the fray, you return home 

 with both clothes and skin in rags. 



As a cage bird I should not recommend this species. 



