458 MECISTURA LONGICAUDATA. 



have perhaps been taken from a nest purposely or accidentally 

 mutilated. A short digression will illustrate this. 



The season of deer-shooting was at hand, when a friend and 

 I went to try our guns with ball. One of the servants took a 

 barley cake from the kitchen-fire, and put it up as a mark. 

 Several shots were fired, but the balls merely tore up the turf 

 At length, taking a very steady aim from the corner of the 

 sheep-fold, I pulled the trigger once more, whereupon the lad 

 running to the cake declared that I had shot right through its 

 centre, and bringing it to us exhibited the proof of my dexterity, 

 but in a little while put an end to my vapouring and loosened 

 the mirth of my rival, by shewing how he had made the hole 

 with his thumb. So, I suppose, the nest in question may have 

 been thumbed before it was given to the ornithologist who first 

 described it. However this may be, here is a true and faithful 

 account of a genuine nest taken from a fir-tree near Lasswade, in 

 the autumn of 1838. It contained sixteen young birds nearly 

 fledged, which have been stuffed, and the two old ones, which 

 were caught in it at night. 



This nest is extremely beautiful, being of a very regular 

 oval form, seven inches in length, and four inches and a 

 quarter in breadth at the middle. It is composed of hypna, 

 kept together by means of the flaxen fibres of plants, some 

 wool, and delicate filmy shreds, interwoven chiefly in a trans- 

 verse direction, and has nearly the whole of its outer surface 

 stuck over with small grey lichens, which are not aggluti- 

 nated, but kept attached by filaments. The aperture, which 

 is round, is an inch and a quarter in diameter, and an inch 

 and a half from the summit or dome. The outer shell thus 

 formed, although well felted and interwoven, is only a quarter 

 of an inch thick. Its inner surface is stuck over with large 

 feathers, and the whole internal cavity is not merely lined but 

 filled with the same materials. They are pretty closely com- 

 pacted at the bottom and along the sides, and when shaken 

 suffice to fill a hat of moderate phrenological pretensions, al- 

 though not exactly mine, which belongs to what may be called 

 a dunderhead. On being counted by a young man, the num- 

 ber is found to be 2379. They belong chiefly to the Pheasant, 



