BIRD-NESTING IN WOODS AND HEDGEROWS. 
habits, and especially in its nest and mode of breeding, the egg 
(fig. 25) being about the size of the blackbird’s, of a pale 
greenish colour, slightly purplish toward the smaller end, with 
reddish brown spots at the other extremity. 
Let ns skirt the plantation, and listen to the strains which 
issue from that sycamore ; they are loud, clear, and surpass- 
ingly melodious ; the notes gush out with rapidity, but always 
clear and distinct. It is the Blackcap warbler, and the nest is 
not far off*, — and there it is, in the fork of that bay -tree. It is 
composed of dried stalks of the goose or some other grass, 
woven together with tufts of wool and moss, lined with fibrous 
roots and long hairs. The eggs (fig. 28) are four or five, of a 
broadly ovate form, three-quarters of an inch long by seven- 
twelfths thick, of a greyish-white colour, faintly mottled with 
purplish grey, with streaks and marks of blackish brown. 
A little further on, a clump of wild birch and hazel over- 
hanging the brook gives shelter to a whole colony of the 
titmice, wrens, redpoles, siskins, and other songsters, whose 
notes, more or less musical, fill the air with an harmo- 
nious hum, as they mingle with the murmurings of the 
brook and with the harsh chir-r-r-ik of the ox-tit, the twirik- 
twinh of the chaffinch, and the alarm note of the robin 
and the wren. Here, also, is the more familiar blue-tit, or 
tomtit’ as he is more commonly called, skipping about with 
a frisking motion, as he peers into every chink and cranny, 
or behind every leaf, now hanging back downwards, now at the 
topmost branches, head-feathers erected, and chur-chur-mg with 
his petulant cry. 
The Tomtit is the constant denizen of such localities as this ; 
but in the spring it also makes excursions into the neigh- 
bouring gardens, where it is a good friend to the gardener, 
devouring the larvae of many an insect which would otherwise 
destroy his hopes of fruit or flower, although John does not 
always know it. At this season Tom is noisy and vociferous. 
The nest is built in the chink of a wall, under the thatched 
roof, in a hole in the trunk of a tree, or, indeed, in any, even 
the most unlikely localities. In the manuscript notes of 
Mr. R. D. Duncan, a good ornithologist and close observer, 
now before us, is described the nest of a pair which had been 
built in the shaft of a pump -well, at the bottom of his garden : 
“ Although the nest was drenched and partly carried away 
every time water was drawn, still they persevered in building 
there, endeavouring to fix their nest near to the piston. Gladly 
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