193 "Wti^m^A 



EARE BIRDS' NESTS. ^i^^ALX>^^ 



BY O. S. ROUJJD, ESQ. 



As a general rule, I consider those birds alone truly British which nest 

 with us, for if we consult our experience, we shall find that the period 

 of nidification only can display to us the different habits and dispositions 

 of those beautiful objects of creation, endowed, as they are, with a sub- 

 lime power of overcoming attraction, and so quickly ranging beyond our 

 sphere of vision ; nor can any of us call that our home, which is not bound 

 to us by some natural ties; and although it is true that our summer birds 

 pay us short and somewhat selfish visits, deserting us at the very time 

 when we should be so really glad of their society, and making the gloom 

 of approaching winter more gloomy still, yet they pay us so great a com- 

 pliment by making this country the scene of their most important duties, 

 that we cannot, and indeed do not, doubt for a moment their claim to a 

 prominent place in our ornithological calendar. Added to this, those birds 

 which visit us in winter only are very few, and many of these few (if 

 that is not an Irishism) are northern natives, and come from countries 

 possessing but little advantage over us in the list of birds. Amongst these 

 two instances of nests came under my own observation. The first was the 

 Grosbeak, (Coccothraustes,) a comparatively rare bird, although in my tax- 

 idermial days I had seven or eight specimens sent to me, and shot one, 

 and saw several wild myself. A pair of these birds built for two years 

 successively, if not longer, and I think produced broods, in a hollow of 

 an old tree at Sillwood Park, Sunnyhill, near Ascot Heath. I did not 

 examine the nest or eggs, as when I chanced to be there the hen bird was 

 on her nest, and we feared to disturb her, lest she might desert it, but 

 I perfectly well remember the circumstance, now perhaps some ten years 

 since, and seeing her head as she sat, and she was seen from day to day 

 by those who resided in the house, to which the tree was very near. I 

 have also seen a stuffed specimen of a young Grosbeak, which was hatched 

 in a garden at Reading, in Berkshire, and which formed part of the col- 

 lection of British Birds of Mr, John Wheeler, then resident at Wokingham. 



The next instance was of the nest and eggs of the Crossbill, {Loxia 

 curvirostra,) which, when I was making a collection of nests, was brought 

 to me, and was in my possession until that, along with many others, was 

 unfortunately destroyed by spiders during a winter when they were shut 

 up in a box, and put aside, the melancholy spectacle presenting itself, when 

 I re- opened it, of a misty plexus of webs, and each nest containing a small 

 heap of powders— the ashes of my hopes! 



These birds are by no means uncommon visitants to the vicinity of the 

 place where the nest was found, namely, in a lane running through the 



VOL. VI. 2 c 



