PICTORIAL GROUPS OF BIRDS, ETC. 401 



of the birds appeared at first to be well done, yet in a short 

 time they shrank in various parts and got out of shape, owing 

 to faulty modelling and a disregard for the tight clay or com- 

 position packing insisted upon in Chapter VI. 



Other subjects which the advanced modeller might be 

 tempted to reproduce are : — 



Whinchats, male and female, bringing food, and perched 

 upon plant-stems just above their nest, containing seven young 

 ones, almost hidden under a dense tuft of meadow-grass backed 

 by modelled flowering buttercups. Ranunculus acris (Leicester 

 Museum). 



Robins' nest and eggs in a tussock of grass, surrounded by 

 woodland leaves, lichen-covered twigs, moss, and well-modelled 

 clumps of flowering primroses ; the hen bird just leaving the 

 nest, and the male sitting singing on a twig near by (Leicester 

 Museum). 



Whitethroats, Sylvia cinerea, and their nest and young in 

 a bramble bush of modelled leaves and flowers (Leicester 

 Museum). 



What would make a sweetly pretty group is one already 

 projected, but not yet completed, for the Leicester Museum ; 

 the subject, a nest of the reed-warbler, Acrocephalus streperus, 

 found in an old-world spot — the Castle reed-bed, Leicester — 

 now built upon. 



To show how important it is to take exact notes of the 

 surroundings of such nests, it will only be necessary to quote 

 from memoranda made at the time — " The nest itself was 

 suspended in the centre of three reeds, Phragmitis communis, 

 growing in shallow water and surrounded by a fine-leaved 

 sedge, and ' mare's-tails,' Equisetum fluviatile ; just beside it 

 on comparatively dry ground, were growing masses of meadow- 

 sweet,' Spircea ulmaria, and meadow-rue, Thalictrum flavum, in 

 blossom. At some little distance, between this nest and 



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