lOO The White-throat. 



pliant, and bend only with an angle ; they prevent the whole 

 fabric from being closely woven, so that it maintains a gauzy 

 texture ; the inside, however, is put together more closely of 

 finer and more pliant materials, delicate root-filaments, and 

 various kinds of hair. The eggs, four or five in number, are of 

 a greenish-gray colour, often with a tawny hue, blotched and 

 spotted over with dark tints of the same colour. 



A correspondent of the author of " British Birds " says that, 

 one morning in June, when walking in his shrubbery within 

 about eighty yards of a white-throat's nest, which he was taking 

 great interest in, he found a portion of the shell of one of the eggs 

 of this bird, and, fearing that a magpie had been plundering it, 

 hastened to the spot, but found to his satisfaction that the nest 

 was then full of newly-hatched birds. " The shell had," he says, 

 "been instinctively taken away by the mother in order to 

 prevent the discovery of the place of her retreat." He adds 

 that the mother-bird was very shy, and usually dropped from 

 her nest with the most astonishing rapidity, and, treading her 

 way through the grasses and other entanglements, disappeared 

 in a moment. The young, too, seemed greatly to dislike obser- 

 vation, and on his taking one into his hand to examine it, it 

 uttered a cry, no doubt of alarm, on which all the other little 

 things leapt out of their abode, although not more than half- 

 fledged, and hopped amongst the grass. It is a singular fact 

 that almost every kind of young bird, if they be caused to leave 

 their nest through alarm, or by being handled, can never be in- 

 duced to stay in the nest again, though they may be put back 

 into it time after time. 



