Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 4 (1900).djvu/32

8 on examining it, I discovered the beginnings of a nest. When, however, I next visited the place, the nest was completed, but a hen Blackbird was sitting on it. I am convinced that there are only two ways of identifying Ring-Ouzels' eggs, and one is by seeing the parent bird leave the nest, or anxiously hanging around in its proximity. If this fails, and an egg is taken from a nest, the only other plan is to visit it again when the young birds are feathered. In 1890 I found a Blackbird's nest containing three eggs in the middle of Glossop Moor. Its situation and the materials of which it was built would have naturally led me to take for granted that it belonged to a Ring-Ouzel, but I saw a hen Blackbird leave it, and I heard her well-known cry.

Before leaving this part of my subject I must quote a curious incident from my notes for May 11th, 1895:—"On the moorland path between Ramsley Lodge and Curbar I met Mr. Peat. Just where we met was a Grouse's nest close to the path. It was peculiar-looking, being partly made of mud; and he told me its history as follows: A Ring-Ouzel built the nest, and began to lay in it. To his surprise he one day found a Grouse's egg in the nest, and thought that someone had put it in for amusement; but the Grouse continued to lay in it, so he removed the Ring-Ouzel's eggs. To-day there were six Grouse's eggs in the somewhat flattened-out Ouzel's nest."

Situation of Nest.—On the moors the usual place for the nest is on a sloping heathery bank, the nest being well concealed among the heather. It is often found near a brook, not because the birds prefer to be near water, but the brook has cut deep down into the peat, and thus has furnished a convenient slope. Banks by a moorland roadside, the sides of hollows, the steep and rugged declivities which always occur below the "edges,"—all these are taken advantage of. Once, when looking for Sand-Martins' nests, I found that of a Ring-Ouzel in a sand-pit. Mr. Peat has never come across the nest in a tree or bush, but in 1887 I chanced on one which was placed in a fir tree a few feet from the ground; and in 1895, in the same locality, my friend Mr. Allan R. Wilson saw one in a similar situation. He has kindly sent me a copy of the entry in his notes, which runs as follows:—"In one of the stunted trees, just the Sheffield side of Stanedge Pole, I found a Ring-Ouzel's nest with four eggs about