encircling the edge. The lining at first sight appears to be formed of a light yellow clay: the touch, however, soon convinces you that a much warmer material has been employed. It is, in fact, composed of rotten wood from the bole of some old decaying willow, mixed and tempered with the glutinous saliva of the bird, and smoothly plastered over the internal foundation of the nest. This casing, when dry, is nearly as firm, and quite as warm for the nestlings, as cork would have been; and so regularly and perfectly is it applied, that the nest might be filled with water without a single drop percolating through the sides. A better defence against the cold winds of March could not have been devised: the thrush is an early-building bird, and therefore requires a deeper and more comfortable nest than is necessary for those whose brood is reared in a less inclement season. Since the thrush is a very common bird, it is strange that so much confusion should exist in books as to the materials of which its nest is formed. Buffon, Syme, and Graham say it is lined with clay; Knapp and Fleming describe it as resembling the blackbird's nest; while Temminck passes it by in silence. If you question a country lad about it, he too will almost invariably tell you that it is lined with brown clay. Such an array of authorities is indeed imposing; but, after all, the thrushes themselves must be consulted, and we are free to confess that in all the scores of nests we have examined, no lining material, save rotten wood, has been used; the colour of which, together with its compactly cemented condition, has, in all probability, originated the mistake. The thrush lays five blue eggs, about one inch in length, and three quarters in breadth, more or less variegated with dark spots of unequal size; and as there are only four in the nest which we have just examined, it is tolerably certain that the hen has not yet begun to sit: we may then, without imputation of cruelty, appropriate a single egg for our cabinet, and, depositing it in a little tin box filled with bran, pass on our way.

Skirting the edge of a straggling coppice, we notice a shrike's nest in a clump of hawthorn-bushes which stand somewhat apart. It is a rounded and rather deep structure,

formed of bent and dried stems, interwoven with moss and a little wool. A single egg, of a light cream colour, and encircled towards the larger end by a ring of pale purplish grey spots, lies within. This, as it is a solitary treasure, we of course restore to its place, satisfied that, as the shrike is by no means an uncommon bird, we shall probably find other better-stored nests as the season advances, without causing the feathered proprietors of this one to forsake their little mansion, as they assuredly would do, if deprived of their first egg. Proceeding about a hundred yards, we observe, perched upon the topmost spray of the hedge, a bird with short thick neck, and slightly decurved bill. His cry, or song, if such it may be called, is harsh and stridulous; and as he turns and moves upon his perch, we can clearly distinguish the colours of the plumage. A dull, brownishred tinge covers the back; the breast is rose-coloured, fading towards the head into a light ashen grey; and the lower tail-coverts are pure white. It is the red-backed shrike, and perhaps the owner of the very nest and egg we have just examined.

Several other nests here reward our search. Placed upon the ground, beneath a trailing clump of brambles, is the loose, basket-work nest of a yellow-hammer, formed of thin, dry twigs and grass-stems, and lined with horse-hair. Four purplish-white eggs, curiously scrawled and marked with dark-red lines and black spots, occupy the interior: of these, two are reserved for our collection. From a large patch of luxuriant nettles, close by a ruinous cattle-shed, starts out a little brown bird, with greyish-white breast, and flies off in a restless, jerking flight. It is the whitethroat, or nettle-creeper; and yonder, on parting the dark herbage, appears its elegant nest, constructed of the withered stems of Galium Aparine, the common cleaver-grass, a plant covered with small, hooked prickles. Indeed, so loosely is the nest built, that but for the tenacity with which these prickles maintain their hold upon each other, when once intertwined, the mere weight of the eggs would break away its substance. Three of the six freckled and greenish-white eggs, which will ultimately fill the nest, are

already laid. We do not, however, meddle with them; for the white-throat is almost as jealous as the wren of any interference in her little household: lift one of her eggs, or disturb a single straw in her nest, and she deserts it for ever.

We now pass through a fir-plantation, and soon perceive a globular nest, hung like a hammock under the fan-like extremity of a pine-branch. It is a golden-crested wren's, the tiniest and liveliest inhabitant of our English woods. This funny little fairy of a bird builds a comparatively large nest, which is one mass of wool, moss, and lichens interwoven with hair, and lined with the softest feathers. The cavity in the centre is scarce two inches across, and three in depth; yet in this confined space the parent birds often bring up a brood of from six to nine young ones.

In the same plantation, high up among the branches, we find the nest of a wood-pigeon. Two large eggs of a pure white colour lie upon the loose platform of twigs; and as, in climbing the tree to get a view of it, we have seriously disturbed the frail structure, so that the bird will certainly desert it, we may as well take the eggs with us as leave them to be blown down by the first high wind. They are larger than those of the common pigeon; being an inch and a half in length, and about one inch broad.

Our young friends who have accompanied us thus far are now, perhaps, fairly tired: so we will rest here on the stile, and puncturing each egg we have collected, carefully blow out the contents. Two apertures should be made, one a little larger than the other, and both on the same side, at some distance from the extremities of the egg, so that, in mounting it on card for the cabinet, the punctured side may be hidden by being turned downwards. This done, we return our treasures to the safe keeping of the box of bran, turn our steps homewards, and bid farewell with three parting admonitions, the golden rules of the humane ornithologist :

"Never take all the eggs from a nest.

Never take any from a nest whose full number is completed.
Never interfere in any way with a young brood.”

St. Mary's, Colchester.

THE REPORTERS' GALLERY.

WE will suppose that for this time only the doorkeeper has relaxed his usual vigilance, and you have managed to effect an entrance. There is as much difficulty in getting a stranger into the Reporters' Gallery as in getting Baron Rothschild into the House. As the gallery will not hold more than thirty, it is quite right this should be the case. On the back seats the reporters are sitting idle; some criticising the speakers in a manner anything but complimentary, some sleeping, some reading a Quarterly: but on the front seat you see some dozen or thirteen, each in a little box to himself, busily engaged. If the speaker be a great gun, the reporter puts forward his utmost energies, and takes down every word: if he be one of the illustrious obscure, the task is less difficult, and a patient public is saved the painful duty of reading the ipsissima verba of Smith or Brown. Beside the reporter sits another gentleman, who has, comparatively speaking, an easier office to perform. He is the gentleman that does the Parliamentary summary, to which you instinctively turn, instead of wading through the eight or nine columns that give the debate itself. With the exception of the "Morning Advertiser," all the papers, I believe, have a summarywriter in the gallery, who remains all night, while the reporters take their turns, which last, on an average, half an hour. Thus, no sooner has a reporter been at his post for that time, than he leaves the House, and rushes up to the office to copy out his notes: this may take him an hour. He then returns, and is ready to go on again when he is due. It would be utterly impossible for one man to report a debate, and then to copy out his notes, and be in time for the paper of the next morning: consequently each paper is compelled to have a body of nine or ten Parliamentary reporters; and these reporters, in order that they may all have an equal chance, vary their turns every week. Thus the man who goes on one week at four, goes the next at a later hour; and the reporter who is one week in the Commons, perhaps the next has the honour of sitting in the VOL. XVIII. Second Series.

I

House of Lords. Otherwise the hard work might fall to a few, and the rest might take it very easy indeed.

As we do not happen to be reporting, we will look about us a little. On our left are the reporters belonging to the "Daily News" and the "Morning Advertiser." The three boxes in the middle belong to the "Times," in one of which sits Mr. Dodd, author of the "Parliamentary Companion," manager of the reporting corps of the "Times,"-manager, under Lord Charles Russell, Sergeant-at-Arms, of the Reporters' Gallery itself. A curious anecdote is told of one of the gentlemen in the boxes belonging to the "Times.” During the recent debate on India, some M.P. referred to a book recently published in defence of the East India Company as the work of a literary hack, much to the amusement of the literary hack, who, at that time, was writing the summary for the "Times." On the other side of the "Times" reporters are those belonging to the "Herald" and "Post." A few of the weekly papers have reporters in on Thursday and Friday nights; and these constitute the only habitués of the gallery. Of course the aspect of the House is different from what it is when viewed from the Strangers' Gallery. You miss the Speaker and his ornamented chair and majestic wig; but you have a better view of the gangway and the bar; you see the Sergeant-at-Arms, wearing a sword, seated on his easy chair, that chair being made easy by the receipt of twelve hundred a year. You see the gallery under the Strangers' Gallery, in which Peers, and Members' sons, and old M.P.'s, occasionally sit: and now and then, through the glass-door by which members enter, you see a bonnet, a bit of muslin, the lustre of some female eye, denoting that woman, in her loveliness, is taking note of the Conscript Fathers. This reminds us that the Reporters' Gallery is just under the little cage in which the British fair are confined during a debate. The consequence is, to some of the reporters who wear moustaches, a Barmecide feast of the most cruel kind. They hear the murmur of female voices, not always "gentle and low;" they know that, shining like stars above them, are eyes more eloquent than the tongues below; but they cannot re