172 
fay a few shades of brown ob the under pari 
of the body. There are also some other dif- 
ferences, but they are so slight and so little 
remarkable, that they are scarcely to be per, 
ceived. She makes her nest in the recesses 
of solitary forests, arid sometimes also in tuft- 
ed and spiny hedges. In this country she is 
said to prefer mountainous situations. Son- 
nini says that she employs for this purpose 
hay,-. -carefully chosen, and very fine small 
fibrous roots, moss, &c. of which she forms-a 
semi-spherical building, about an inch and a 
half in thickness. The interior of the nest is 
furnished with a profusion of feathers and 
down. On this soft bed the female deposits 
from three to five white eggs, spotted with a 
dirty brown, which assumes a blackish tinoe 
towards the larger end. Other authors have 
described the number of eggs to be six,- and 
their colour to be a dull olive green, spotted 
at the larger end .w ith black. Although this 
bird breeds in France, and other parts of the 
European Continent, and without doubt in 
this country also, into which it is said to mi- 
grate in the spring, and to depart in the au- 
tumnal season, yet it is so scarce that Mo'nta- 
