411 
Egg-collecting in Asia Minor. 
passage protruded from the centre of the mud nest. These 
nests were very strongly and solidly built, and I had to hit 
them with a stone in order to break them open; they 
were thickly and warmly lined with soft hair closely felted 
together, and had all the appearance of having been used for 
many years, as the clay of the prolonged narrow entrance- 
passages had assumed a grey, hard, stony appearance. 
On the plain between the marsh and the mountain I found 
another Crested Lark's nest with five eggs, and a Turkish 
shepherd-boy showed me a Bunting's nest, containing five 
eggs, in a cornfield, just outside a village. This nest was 
built right on the ground beside a stone, and the eggs much 
resembled those of the Yellow-hammer. However, the Yellow- 
hammer does not breed in this, or I believe in any, part of 
Asia Minor, and I have no doubt that it was a nest of 
Cretzschmar's Bunting ( Emberiza ccesia) , a species which is not 
uncommon in that country. While returning to Appa along 
the railway-line we dug out four Rock-Sparrows' nests. Three 
of these were just ready for eggs, and the fourth contained 
young birds just hatched out. These nests were all made in 
holes that had been bored, to a depth of about four feet, into 
the cuttings and embankments along the railway-line. Late 
in the evening, while strolling about on the plain quite close 
to the station-buildings, I almost trod on a Short-toed Lark 
(Calandrella brachydadyla) sitting on three eggs, which were 
so much incubated that I was able to blow them only with 
great difficulty. 
Early the next morning I found another Short-toed 
Lark's nest, also with three eggs, somewhat incubated. In 
a village about a mile from the railway-station I found two 
colonies of Spanish Sparrows ( Passer salicicola ) busy 
building all round the sides of two Storks’ nests. These 
latter were immense structures, the accumulation of many 
years, placed in trees some ten feet above the ground, 
and the Spanish Sparrows' nests were built all round them, 
and so close together that they filled almost every interstice 
in the great piles of sticks. The nests were very much 
like those of the Common Sparrow (Passer domesticus) , loose 
