204 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



Considerable stress has been laid on the fact that Whinchats 

 study the art of concealment when constructing their nests, or, 

 perhaps I should more correctly say, when choosing a site for 

 the same ; but that such cannot be the invariable rule is, I think, 

 made evident by the very open situations in which I have found 

 them. On more than one occasion have I discovered a nest 

 mainly owing to first having caught a passing glimpse of the 

 glossy greenish-blue eggs reposing in it. I have known nests in 

 various situations : in grass fields, in the banks of roadside 

 ditches, in coarse grass on a hillside, on railway embankments, 

 and at the bottom of gorse bushes on the upland wastes. There 

 is no doubt that when built in this last-mentioned position the 

 nest is exceedingly well hidden, and not likely to be easily dis- 

 covered unless you chance to beat the bird out of her recess, or 

 detect her quitting it as she hurriedly flies forth at the signal of 

 danger from her mate. If the eggs are on the point of being 

 hatched, the hen will sit uncommonly close ; but if they have 

 only been recently laid, the alarm-notes have the desired effect 

 of scaring her away immediately. 



During the period of incubation the male bird keeps a vigilant 

 and incessant outlook, and gives warning of the approach of an 

 intruder by sharply uttering the notes utac, utac, and there is no 

 more convenient eminence for observing this habit than the top 

 of a railway embankment, the cock bird, as a rule, being perched, 

 sentinel-like, on the telegraph wires. My wife found two nests 

 of this species on a grassy slope just outside Scarborough in the 

 summer of 1892, each containing six eggs, which is the usual 

 number of the clutch. There was nothing remarkable in the 

 mere discovery of the nests beyond the fact that both were built 

 within a few yards not only of each other, but of the old nests of 

 the preceding year. Yet another instance of the tendency of birds 

 to return annually to their erstwhile haunts. One of the nests I 

 found by first noticing the eggs, was placed in an open bank in 

 the middle of a field adjoining the river Lugg, in Herefordshire; 

 it was the sort of situation a .Redbreast might have chosen, but 

 almost too exposed, I should have thought, for even this con- 

 fidential species. Another nest was placed in a grass meadow 

 that had been "laid" for hay, and could be seen from the foot- 

 path that bisected it. 



