NATXJRAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 391 
few dots of lilac. The s^ots are nearly always small, and are 
seldom abundant." 
Wrens often breed in very queer places. Lord Northwick 
has been good enough to give me a very good example of this 
as represented in the drawing opposite. The keeper at North- 
wick Park is in the habit of nailing the vermin he kills against 
the side of a barn or outhouse ; in this instance a wren had, from 
some caprice of its own, chosen the interspace between two 
mummied bodies of stoats to build her nest. It will be ol)served 
that the tips of the tails are black, hencre'it is known that they are 
stoats or ermines. The nest is about six inches long, and is com - 
posed of moss leaves and fine hay, interwoven into the fur of 
the stoats for support. May we not infer from this that 
birds do not fear their enemies when dead and dry ? I do not 
think that rooks are scared by the appearance of one of their 
brethren hung on a stick as a scarecrow. I hear that in Ire- 
land the peasants are so ragged that an old hat and jacket will 
not frighten birds. A friend of mine who came into an estate 
in Ireland ordered a scarecrow to be made of the clothes of a 
well-dressed Eotten-Kow dandy; the birds were so unaccus- 
tomed to see such a sight, that they were quite taken aback. 
The Woodlark (A. arhorea), p. 101.— This bird, writes Mr. 
N'apier, " is not generally distributed ; but in some districts it is 
pretty abundant : it is an early as well as a late breeder, having 
eggs from April till the end of July. The nest is a careless 
structure made of fine grass and a little moss. It is sometimes 
hardly a cup shape, but it is usually of this form, and loses its 
shape when an attempt is made to move it. The ground-colour 
of one variety of egg is yellowish white, spotted over with fine 
dots of ash, and a smaller number of purple brown ; a second 
has a pale rosy tint, with spots of the same hue of a darker 
shade ; a third has spots of rosy brown ; in a fourth the ground 
is obscured by minute spots of purple umber, which give a 
uniform appearance to the egg." The woodlark is a very free 
and beautiful singer in captivity. 
Whitethroat, p. 101.— The whitethroat (0. cincrea), writes 
Mr. Napier, " forms its nest of grass, or the hollow stalks of the 
goose grass, or lady's bedstraw. It lines its nest with fine grass or 
roots, with occasionally a few hairs, but wool is seldom if ever 
used. The nest is a most loose and careless structure, but very 
difficult to imitate by man, for at the least touch it falls to pieces, 
yet the materials are so interlaced that its construction is an in- 
teresting study. It is a summer visitor to Britain, and breeds in 
