8o 
British Birds. 
neck, both of which are very conspicuous as the bird sits on the top of a furze bush 
or low hedge. The tail, when spread in flight, does not show the amount of white 
which is so evident in the Whinchat. Although found in most parts of Great 
Britain in summer, the Stonechat is everywhere a local bird, and a few remain 
with us during the winter, but the greater number migrate. It is a local bird 
throughout Europe, as it is in Great Britain, and it does not extend nearly so far 
north as the Whinchat,. while its eastern range is bounded by the Ural Mountains, or 
perhaps a little further to the eastward, its place being taken in Siberia by a different 
species, Pratincola maura. Our Stonechat is a much more plentiful species in 
Southern Europe than it is in the more northern parts of the continent, and breeds 
throughout the Mediterranean countries, wintering in North-east Africa and 
Senegambia. 
The species is very similar in its habits to the foregoing species, but frequents 
the more open country. Its nest is quite as hard to find, and as equally well 
concealed. The eggs are pale bluish-green, but the reddish-brown spots are larger 
and more distinct than those of the Winchat, and the spots generally form a zone 
round the larger end of the egg. 
Excepting in the extreme north of Scotland and the 
Orkneys, Shetlands, and the Hebrides, the Hedge-Sparrow is 
universally distributed throughout the British Islands, and 
is almost as familiar a pensioner in our gardens as the Robin. 
Its lively little song is heard throughout the spring and 
summer, and it is one of the first birds to commence to sing when winter is barely 
over. The nest is a beautiful structure, composed principally of moss, and the eggs 
are of a clear greenish-blue, with no spots of any kind. Although the Accentors 
have spotted young, they differ from the rest of the Thrushes in having scales on 
the tarsus, and in their general aspect they are much more like Robins. They are 
to a great extent migratory, but have a much more rounded wing than the majority 
of the Turdida, to which family 
they really belong, and the rounded 
wing merely shews that they are 
less migratory than their relatives 
with pointed wings. Nevertheless 
numbers of our Hedge-Sparrows 
leave us in the autumn and cross 
the channel. With the exception 
of Southern Europe, where the 
species only nests in the mountains, 
the Hedge-Sparrow is generally 
distributed during the breeding 
season throughout Europe as far 
THE 
HEDGE-SPARROW. 
(Tharrhalens 
modularis.) 
The Hedge-Sparrow. 
