Ml'. J. WoUey 07i the Breeding of the Smew. 69 



liar species, haunting gardens and often entering houses, where; 

 instead of appearing alarmed, as do most other birds under 

 similar circumstances, it preserves great coolness, hopping 

 gravely from one piece of fm'niture to another, and carefully 

 exploring the surrounding objects, its short squat figure 

 putting one perpetually in mind of the Nuthatches {Sittce), 

 to which group Certhiola must have some strong affinities. 

 It generally keeps in pairs, and appears to breed from March 

 to August, building its domed and often pensile nest, which 

 has a small porch or pent-house roof over the entrance, in 

 almost any kind of situation, but most generally at the extre- 

 mity of a leafy bough. It sometimes seems to lay its eggs, 

 which rarely appear to exceed three in number, before the nest 

 is finished, rather to the discomfiture of the oologist, who de- 

 lays inserting his finger into the structure while he sees one or 

 both of the birds busy with a tuft of grass or cotton in their 

 bills, until at last, losing patience, he examines the edifice to 

 find the eggs already hatched. These are in shape elongated, 

 and in colour white, blotched, particularly at the larger end, 

 with rusty red. The nest is generally very untidy on the out- 

 side ; it is composed of coarse grass or bents, with a good 

 sprinkling of cotton without, and feathers in the inside. The 

 birds are also fond of picking up rags and any sorts of odds and 

 ends they can find about the houses, and adding them to the 

 pile. 



" I observed an instance in which two broods were reared 

 from the same nest, with only an interval of ten days between 

 the time the young left it and the laying of an cgg.^' — E. N. 



[To be continued.] 



VII. — On the Breeding of the Smew, Mergus albellus, L. 

 By John Wolley, jun. 



The first year I was in Lapland, 1853, it was important for me 

 to find out the native, that is, the Finnish, names for the birds 

 of the country. Of the ducks generally I soon learned to un- 

 derstand to whicii species each name referred; but there was 

 one called Ungilo, concerning which I was for a long time in the 



