92 HANDBOOK OF BRITISH INLAND BIRDS 
by midsummer, though they may often be found in 
July. The nest is built in many different, and 
often extraordinary, situations ; but some of the 
commonest are an open hole in a wall, upon the 
stem of a creeper or fruit-tree trained to a wall or 
trellis, or on an ivy-stem against a tree, and upon 
a beam or window-ledge in an outhouse. It is 
rather small and slight, but is beautifully made 
of moss, cobwebs and lichens felted together into 
a soft green and silver mass, with wool, hair, and 
feathers worked into the lining. There are four 
to six eggs, pale green in ground colour, heavily 
clouded and spotted with dull red. The cock bird 
has a very faint, low song, and the clicking alarm 
note is also much quieter than that of most other 
birds. The plumage is a rather dull brown above 
and dull greyish-white beneath, with small streaky 
flecks of brown upon the throat and breast. There 
is always something extremely suggestive of later 
summer about this silent little bird, with its soft, 
fine-weather nest, and its life of watching for heat- 
bred insects in the gardens and shorn hayfields. 
Even the Sparrow will try at times to catch a 
currant moth or a may-fly upon the wing ; but 
there is all the difi^erence of the hopelessly clumsy 
beginner and the finished expert between the 
Sparrow's wild and generally unsuccessful attempt, 
and the perfect ease with which the Spotted Fly- 
