Nests of the 
Common. 
(81) THE BIRD WORLD. 
Greatly attached is the Stonechat to 
its limited bit of waste land; the male 
and female, for they pair apparently 
Once for life, spend their lives within a 
circle of a few acres of the common or 
waste land. We have never seen the 
bird on the ground, much less perched 
on a stone. His ambition carries him 
to the topmost spray of the gorse, from 
which, as we have said, he cusses you. 
The name Stonechat seems to have been 
wrongly bestowed upon him, and Mac- 
gillivray says that if he had his rights 
he would be much better called a Bush- 
chat. 
Wrongly Named. 
Even Whinchat would be an equally 
appropriate name, but that name 
belongs to another member of the 
“ chat ” family (one of our migrants), 
which, too, is found on the common. 
It is not, however, so essentially a bird 
of the waste land as the Stonechat. A 
much-favoured spot for the nest of the 
Whinchat is the bank of the railway 
cutting. The nest of the Whinchat, 
although fairly well concealed, is not 
so difficult to find as that of the Stone¬ 
chat. In fact, the turquoise blue of the 
egg has often caught our eye as we 
passed over the common, thus betraying 
the nest. 
The Scribbling Lark. 
So far as the members of the Bunting 
family are concerned, we find the 
yellow (the Yellowhammer) and the 
Cirl—the last-named being the rarer of 
the two. Both of these birds build on 
the ground, or within a few inches of it. 
The eggs are so much alike that identifi¬ 
cation is almost a matter of impossi¬ 
bility, unless the bird is flushed from 
the nest. The Yellowhammer, by far 
the better-known bird, has a variety of 
local names bestowed upon it, and, too, 
there is a good deal of folk lore in con¬ 
nection with the bird. In Norfolk, for 
instance, the bird is known as Guler, 
derived from geolu, yellow. 
The egg is a remarkable example of 
scratches and scribblings, from which 
the bird is known as “the Scribbling 
Lark.” The Scotch peasant lads render 
the Yellowhammer’s song into “ De’il, 
de’il, de’il take ye soon.” This pro¬ 
bably arises from the extraordinary 
superstition that the bird gets in the 
morning of every May-day three drops 
of the Devil’s blood, which may be dis¬ 
tinctly traced on its breast:— 
The Brock, the Toad, and the Yellow Yeorling 
Get a drap o’ the de’il s bluid ilka May morning. 
One of the larger migratory birds and 
a later arrival, the Nightjar, will be 
seen on the common in May. You may 
flush the bird off her eggs amongst the 
bracken, or by chance stumble across 
the two beautifully-mottled eggs, not 
the nest, for the bird builds none, the 
eggs being deposited on the bare 
ground; but if she is sitting closely you 
can very easily pass her, as the colour 
of her plumage harmonises closely with 
the tints of her surroundings. It has, 
through so often nesting among the 
bracken, acquired the name of Fern 
Owl. 
A Sweet Singer. 
Finally we come to a bird which by 
preference frequents such a place as the 
common, where gorse abounds, namely, 
the Brown or Grey Linnet. This bird, 
too, is an early nester, the nests which 
we have met with being well hidden 
amongst the gorse stems. Externally it 
is composed of fine twigs and grass 
stalks, and a bit of wool, the cup, 
which is beautifully rounded, being 
lined with hair, wool, and some sort of 
vegetable down, thistle for choice, 
and some feathers. We have noticed 
that the nest is in most cases 
built on the slant. The eggs, from four 
to six in number, are pale bluish green 
in ground, spotted and speckled with 
deep reddish brown. The cock bird 
sings whilst the hen is covering her eggs, 
and frequently gives the site away by 
perching on some twig of gorse close at 
hand. The names by which the bird is 
best known in the North are Whinfincb 
and Gorse Cock. 
