APPENDIX. 
385 
wards I found tlie nest, and being just able to reach it by standing 
upon a thick bough, I felt satisfied, from the smoothness and 
hardness of the lining, that my conjecture as to the bird’s species 
was correct. However, as the nest looked rather untidy, and not 
so neatly finished as that of the Thrush, I thought I would take a 
peep at the eggs. There were four of them, and as I took them 
out one after the other, what was my amazement on finding that 
they were, as I thought at the moment. Blackbird’s ! I thought I 
might possibly have mistaken a hen Blackbird for a Thrush, but 
then the nest was evidently not that of a Blackbird. Eichard 
Owen, who was with me at the time, seeming to enjoy my 
astonishment, said that the bird was a Eedwing, and that he had 
even seen the red beneath the wings as it flew out of the tree and 
darted off above his head. I soon brought my face upon a level 
with the nest, and there observed that the mud was still soft in 
some places, that the cavity was not quite so perfect a circle at the 
brim as a Thrush is in the habit of making, and that, strange to 
say, beneath the eggs and upon one side of the cavity there was a 
little fine grass. Greatly puzzled, I retired ; and on visiting the 
spot about half an hour afterwards, I heard the bird fly out again, and 
was convinced that the peculiar sound it uttered proceeded from 
the throat of a Eedwing. I was too much occupied during the 
remainder of the day to keep watch upon the nest, but in the 
evening I found the lining of fine dry grass considerably increased. 
It is strange that the eggs should have been laid before the nest 
was completed, but I can only account for it by supposing that the 
late cold wet and rough weather has delayed the progress of nest- 
building, and the bird was compelled to lay before its completion. 
May ] 3, Monday . — Earning nearly all day. 
649. The curious nest which I found in the bay tree yesterday 
is now thickly and smoothly lined with fine dry grass, but I have 
not seen either of the birds to which it belongs. 
663. (^May 14). — Very early this morning I crept with great 
caution to the nest in the bay tree, and there, to my intense delight, 
distinctly saw a Eedwing sitting upon the eggs. I obtained a still 
better view of her as she caught sight of me and flew off, and then, 
taking advantage of her absence, I carefully removed two of the 
eggs — real bond fide British specimens. The old bird does not 
