48 ORNITHOLOGY AND OOLOGY. 



dance of food (field-mice), I concluded that this would bo 

 selected as a breeding-place, and watched accordingly. 

 The male was very attentive to his mate, often talking to 

 and caressing her. If she should alight on the ground or 

 on a fence-rail, he would alight with her, and often fly and 

 walk around her, bowing and chattering in a ludicrous 

 manner. After a situation (luckily where I could watch 

 them unobserved) was fixed upon for a nest, both birds 

 were very active in its construction. It was built on a 

 hummock, perhaps eighteen inches above the level of the 

 meadow. The materials used in its construction were 

 dried grasses, which were woven together rather neatly. It 

 was considerably hollowed, — perhaps an inch and a half, — 

 and lined with very soft grass. The external diameter of 

 the nest was about eighteen inches ; internal diameter, 

 about eight inches. The female laid four eggs of a dirty- 

 white color, with a faint tinge of blue. In one specimen 

 there were a few faint spots of brown ; but I think that 

 generally the eggs of this species are without spots. 1 I 

 have seen a great many, and but a very few had spots, and 

 these not at all distinct. A great number of specimens 

 exhibit a variation of from 1.62 to 1.90 inch in length, and 

 from 1.32 to 1.25 inch in breadth. The habits of this bird 

 entitle it to the protection of the farmer. It subsists almost 

 entirely upon the injurious field-mice, and the numbers of 

 these animals which it destroys in the breeding season are 

 incredible : from early dawn to dim twilight it may be seen 

 busily searching for these pests, seldom molesting the small 

 beneficial birds or poultry. 



1 Dr. Brewer, in describing the eggs of this species, says : " With but a single 

 exception, all these eggs (six) are very distinctly blotched and spotted. Their 

 ground-color is a dirty bluish-white, which in one is nearly unspotted ; the markings 

 so faint as to be hardly perceptible, and only upon close inspection. In all the 

 others, spots and blotches of a light shade of purplish-brown occur, in a greater or 

 less degree, over their entire surface. In two, the blotches are large and well 

 marked ; in the others, less strongly traced, but quite distinct. This has led to a 

 closer examination of eggs from other parts of the country, and nearly all are per- 

 ceptibly spotted." 



