loo Tin-: Chaffinx'h 



warm mass. The nest is most freqiieutl}' placed in hawthorn hedges, where 

 mimicry of its environment wonld be absolutely useless ; preference is given to 

 hedges enclosing orchards, but roadside hedge-rows are often utilized, as also those 

 along the margins of woods ; the forks of young fruit-trees and the boughs of 

 old apple-trees are sometimes selected as nesting-sites, and Seebohm speaks of the 

 " lichen- and moss-covered branches of the birch- and ash-trees, far up in the 

 towering branches of the oak, the alder, and the poplar, and on the lowly branches 

 of the holly, more rarely of the yew, and freciuentl}- in the gorse shrubs." I 

 have found it in the yew, but never in gorse. 



The nest takes from five da^-s to a fortnight to construct, all depending upon 

 whether the bird is ready to la^'. In form it is a small neat cup, slightl}' con- 

 tracted at the top, and tolerably deep ; but curiously enough Seebohm quotes a 

 note h\ a Mr. C. Doncaster on a very aberrant nest seen by him on a thorn tree 

 by the river Derweut, which appears to have been like that made by an English 

 Chaffinch sent to New Zealand, and which has been figured b}' Dixon as evidence 

 that birds do not inherit the design upon which they construct their nests. In the 

 year 1896 I again turned a Canarj- loose in an aviary, and had the pleasure of 

 seeing her prove the fallacy of Dixon's belief, by building a cup-shaped nest in a 

 bunch of fir-twigs, her only pattern being set b}- a Canary on the opposite side 

 of the aviary sitting in the usual square box. 



The materials of the nest, as already stated, vary a good deal; the normal t\pe 

 being firmly felted together and formed of moss, a few lichens and spiders' cocoons, 

 and lined with rootlets and hair, intermingled, or covered, with a la3'er of thistle- 

 down ; but one of my nests has a rather rough aspect, being constructed of roots 

 and fibre, mingled with fine worsted, and with hardl}- any moss or lichen in the 

 outer walls, but with the usual lining ; others have feathers mixed with the usual 

 materials in the lining. The eggs, four to six in number, are, as a rule, either 

 greenish, or rosy flesh-coloured, the markings consisting of diffused sienna or ruddy 

 brownish patches and streaks, some of which enclose blots, commas, dots, streaks, 

 or hair-lines of blackish-brown ; in some eggs the reddish markings are chiefly 

 massed over the larger end : in others the darker markings form a subterminal 

 zone, whilst in rare instances they are wholly absent, the eggs being bluish, slightly 

 clouded with I'eddish : the rarest t3'pe, of which I have only taken two clutches, is 

 exactly like some eggs of the Bullfinch, clear blue, with grey shell-spots, purplish 

 patches, and almost black surface spots. The Chaffinch certainl}- frequently rears 

 three broods in a year ; nidification lasting from April sometimes to August. 



The natural food of the Chaffinch in summer, as already stated, consists largely 

 of insects, their larvae, spiders, and the soft foliage and unripe seeds of weeds ; but at 



