The Nesting of the Brambling. 235 



should have to remove them in the foUowinj^' spring, but they 

 did not become in the least aggressive, on the contrary the cock 

 was terrorised by a White-throated Finch, who spent all his leis- 

 ure chasing tlie poor Brambling round and round the aviary. 



On June 8th. 1915. I saw the hen toying with nesting 

 material, and two or three days later she was attempting to 

 build a nest with hay. whicn I saw at once was unsuitable. I 

 supplied her with cotton wadding, pulled into small pieces, which 

 answered the purpose admirably, and a most beautiful nest was 

 soon completed. It was built on the very highest branch in the 

 aviary, immediately under the wire netting, and about nine feet 

 from the grovmd. With the exception of a few pieces of wool 

 and hay. the nest was built entirely of cotton wadding, and lined 

 with feathers. 



The first egg was laid on June 20th, and from that time 

 onwards, the hen spent a good deal of time on the nest, so that 

 it is difficult to say when incubation commenced in earnest. Five 

 eggs were laid altogether, very much resembling those of the 

 Bullfinch, blue, sparingly spotted with reddish-brown. 



( )n the morning of July 2nd two of the eggs hatched, 

 fourteen days from the laying of the first one; a third hatched 

 the following day. and the remaining two were infertile. If we 

 take from thirteen to fourteen days as the incubation period, it 

 does not leave much margin for error. 



Both the old birds protested very strongly against the tiny 

 nestlings being examined, but the hen went back to the nest to 

 brood immediately after I had left it. The skin of the newly 

 hatched chick is deep pink in colour, the down pure white, long 

 and profuse; the inside of the mouth is pink, the spurs of the 

 tongue paler, the corners of the mouth are white. 



1 pin my faith to spiders as the best food for nestlings 

 that require to be fed on live-food, but they are very difficult to 

 collect in any quantity before the middle of August, and I had 

 to eke out the supply with tiny mealworms. It is quite easy to 

 provide against other birds stealing all the live-food, by placing 

 what you are able to collect, in a small box, fixed as near to the 

 nest as possible, and perhaps this is the only way of insuring that 

 the proper birds get a large share of it. 



