Bird Life Through the Camera. 
91 
thoiifrht myself of another field similarly overgrown, a short dis- 
tance away and separated by the hijuh road, from where I had 
bjjiii w it;'ii;i<,'. Having walked over thereto, to my great 
delight I again sighted my cpiarry ; noticing that he kept flying 
down to one spot many times, I followed him, and a thorough 
search revealed the nest, it was most cunningly concealed, almost 
on the ground amid some short furze. 
The nest contained four young chats, from three to four 
days old. At this stage I first saw the hen, she appeared very 
excited and had no doubt been brooding until she thought it 
dangerous to stop longer, and then had crept noiselessly away ; 
it was only when she knew that I had at last discovered her home 
that she came out into the open, perching on a furze branch, a 
short distance away, continually repeating her warning call note 
which, is very similar to that of the Nightingale when alarmed, 
and quite harsh. 
Satisfied with my find I returned home and for the next 
two or three days, after pitching my hiding tent about four feet 
distance from the nest, paid it several visits and secured more than 
fifty photographic studies, four of which illustrate these notes. 
They took no heed of the sudden growth of a large cluster 
of furze and braken in such close proximity to their home, the 
cock frequently pitching on my tent only a couple of inches from 
my hea 1, before going down to the young with food. 
The nest was constructed of dried grass, lined with cow's 
hair. On arriving with food, which consisted of green catei-pillars, 
grasshoppers and other winged insects, the birds always made a 
point of pitching on the highest twig of furze, before descending 
to the nest, and the hen is shown in this position in one of the 
accompanying photo-reproductions. 
The eggs, generally four to six in number, are of a very 
pale blue in colour. 
The cock has a reddish-chestnut breast, deep velvety black 
head and back, with sides of neck and wing coverts white. The 
colouration of the hen is much duller than that of her mate, being 
brown, with the rich coloured areas of the male only faintly 
indicated. The young birds closely resembled the female and do 
not develop the full colouring of the adults for some months after 
they leave the nest, neither do they not attain their full brilliance 
till the second year. 
