BIRD-NESTING.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XVII, Issue XVIII, 31 October 1896, Page 571

BIRD-NESTING.

lI.—EGGS AND NESTS. The commonest eggs are the sparrow, which are of a white colour mottled with brown. The nest is an untidy mass of straw, hollow in the centre, and lined with feathers. Next to the sparrow is the blackbird with pale blue eggs mottled with brown. The nest is made of straw and grass twisted round till there is a hollow a little larger than half a cricket ball. The thrush’s nest is like the blackbird’s except that it is lined with rotten wood, etc. The eggs are blue and are spotted with black. The starling’s eggs are like the thrush’s, but they are pale blue, but the nest is like a sparrow’s cut in two. The goldfinch builds a little nest of twigs and lines it with thistledown. The eggs are smaller than a marble, and are cream spotted with brown and black. Most of the other little birds build the same kind of nests and lay the eggs like the goldfinch. The tiny tom-tit builds a nest of spiderweb like a basket and lays smaller eggs than the goldfinch. The lark lays two or three eggs of mottled brown colour in a nest on the ground. People often find larks' nests containing young ones under a small ti-tree bush, and when they come again they find them gone. If they had watched they would have seen the larks removing their young ones to another nest. Seagulls and thrushes are protected by law. In the first paper I did not mention king-fishers’ eggs as I don’t know anyone who has any. I once saw a blackbird’s nest with four eggs in on a thin branch, out which I climbed but my weight bent the branch right over and the eggs fell out and were broken. Next time I passed the place I found that two sparrows had built their nest over the blackbird’s old one. I once heard of a thrush’s nest having seven eggs in and of a sparrow’s having twenty-four. Joe Brown.