NON-INDIGENOUS BRITISH BIRDS. 17 



straggling woods composed of firs and birches, with a 

 {g.\w larches and alders intermingled. Birch, willow, and 

 alder thickets are also frequented. It is probable that 

 the Brambling pairs annually, and from what I have 

 observed I should think that this event takes place in 

 spring before the birds leave their winter quarters. 

 Amongst large timber the nest is generally made at 

 heights varying from ten to thirty feet above the ground, 

 but amongst smaller trees and in thickets it is placed at 

 a much lovver elevation. A favourite site is in a crotch 

 where some branch joins the trunk, or in a fork of a limb 

 at some distance from the stem. In bushes several small 

 branches often support the nest. This is cup-shaped, 

 but nothing near so neat a structure as that of the 

 Chaffinch, and is more loosely put together and larger. 

 Externally it is composed of moss, lichens, and birch 

 bark studded with cobwebs and vegetable down, which 

 serve to bind the other materials together, and lined 

 with fine dry grass and quantities of feathers. Whether 

 the female is the sole builder, as is the case with the 

 Chaffinch, appears not to have been determined, and the 

 actions of the birds when disturbed at their nesting- 

 places appear also to be undescribed. 



Range of egg colouration and measurement : 

 The eggs of the Brambling are from five to seven in 

 number, six being an average clutch. They arc bluish- 

 green in ground colour, spotted and speckled with under- 

 lying markings of pale reddish-brown and surface spots 

 of very dark brown, andj generally more or less clouded 

 and suffused with irregular blurred blotches of very pale 

 brown. The dark spots are often very rotund, and 

 surrounded by paler discs of colour. One type is almost 

 devoid of these dark surface spots ; another has a circular 

 patch of gradated colour like a cap over the larger end 

 of the c^^g ; another type is almost uniform pale-green 



c 



