THE BIRDS OiF CAMBKIDGESHlkE. 
5 * 
and they have occurred white or nearly so. In all the varieties a 
greater or less number of minute red spots are sprinkled over 
the shell. 
The Whinchat (, Saxicola rubetra ) is known in Cambridgeshire 
as the Grasschat. It is a summer visitor, arriving in April and 
leaving in September. The nest in this county is usually made 
among rough grass and very carefully concealed. The eggs are 
bluish green and generally unmarked, but some have minute red- 
brown spots. Some are paler than others and they have occa¬ 
sionally, but very rarely, been found so closely spotted as to 
appear a dull reddish brown. 
The Wheatear ( Saxicola cencinthe) occasionally visits us, but I 
have never found its nest, and the same remark applies to the 
Grasshopper Warbler. 
Savis Warbler ( Locustella nccvia.') was formerly found nesting 
in Cambridgeshire. The Sedge Warbler ( Sylvia phragmitis ) is 
one of our summer visitants. It makes its appearance here about 
the third week in April. It is very retiring in its ways, and hides 
in bushes or osiers near the rivers, and glides rapidly out of sight ; 
a stealthy approach is therefore necessary before it can be seen 
fairly. The nest is made in a low thick bush by the river side, 
constructed of very fine grass and horsehair and bulky in size. 
The eggs are greenish, sometimes ochreous white, finely freckled 
with light brown, and with a few dark hair-like streaks at the 
larger end. 
The Reed Warbler ( Acrocephalus streperus ) is rare in Cambridge¬ 
shire, but I saw a pair of reddish brown birds, yellowish white 
underneath and pale breasts, near Ely, in the summer of the 
present year, and they appeared to me to be reed warblers. I 
could not discover a nest, although I looked about as carefully as 
possible among the reeds. 
(To be continued.) 
THE SKIN. 
An elaborately prepared and most instructive lecture on the 
above subject was delivered, by Mr. H. C Richter, before the 
Lambeth Field Club, on the evening of September 4th. The 
lecture was illustrated by a series of coloured diagrams executed 
by the lecturer himself, who thus combined science and art in a 
most effective manner. 
The lecturer commenced by explaining the structure and 
functions of the skin in the lower animals, rising from the primi¬ 
tive protoplasmic infusorian, through the hard-shelled and often 
spiny Echinoderm, the chitine-cased insect, and the soft-bodied 
