File:British birds' nests; how, where, and when to find and identify them (1898) (14747219574).jpg

Identifier: britishbirdsnest00kear (find matches)
Title: British birds' nests; how, where, and when to find and identify them
Year: 1898 (1890s)
Authors: Kearton, Richard, 1862-1928
Subjects: Birds -- Great Britain Birds -- Nests
Publisher: London, New York (etc.) Cassell and company, limited
Contributing Library: American Museum of Natural History Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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Text Appearing Before Image:
as furze,
gooseberry, briars, brambles, and nettles. I met
with three nests, containing eggs, close together
amongst the black-currant bushes of a small garden
last year in Westmoreland; and remember on
one occasion finding one quite on the ground in
Yorkshire ; and one, which was somewhat bulky in
appearance, in a bundle of pea-sticks in the corner
of a Surrey garden. Its size aroused my curiosity,
and I found that a new nest had been built on
the top of an old one, which contained three addled
eggs. Found pretty generally throughout the United
Kingdom, with the exception, perhaps, of the islands
lying to the north, and some of the smallest and
bleakest of those to the west of Scotland. Our
illustration is from a photograph taken in Hert-
fordshire, and shows a typical situation.
Materials. — Slender twigs (sparingly used and
sometimes entirely absent), roots, moss, and dry
grass, with an inner lining of wool, hair, and
feathers. I have on several occasions seen nest
smade entuely of moss and cowhair.
Text Appearing After Image:

HEDGE SPARROW.

132 BRITISH BIRDS NESTS.

Eggs.—Four to six, of a beautiful unmarked
turquoise-blue. Size about 77 by 6 in.
Time.—March, April, May, and June, sometimes
as late even as July.
Remarks. — Resident. Notes, a low plaintive
cheep-cheep, and a cheerful, though not long
sustained, song. Local and other names: Hedge
Accentor, Shuffle
wing, Hedge Warbler, Dunnock,
Hempie. Sits closely, and slips away without
demonstration.

HERON, COMMON.

Description of Parent Birds. — Length about
thirty-six inches. Beak long, straight, strong,
pointed, and dusky in colour, except at the base
of the under mandible, where it is yellowish. Irides
yellow. Forehead, crown, and cheeks, greyish-
white. On the back part of the head the feathers
are elongated into a kind of plume, and are bluish-
black or dark slaty-
blue in colour. Upper surface
of body and wing-coverts bluish-grey ; wing-primaries
black; tail-quills cinerous. Neck white, adorned
with large longitudinal elongated spots of dark
bluish-grey in front. On the lower part of the

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