SISKIN. 127 



species of Titmouse to keep the flock together while its 

 members industriously search every cone or catkin, clinging, 

 back downwards or in any other convenient position, to 

 the most slender sprays in their quest. These migrant 

 bands commonly appear towards the end of September 

 and stay with us till April — their abode during that time 

 being almost entirely ruled by the supply of food, and 

 what may be a favourite haunt in one year will not be 

 visited by a single example in another, so that the appear- 

 ance of the species is, in many places, very uncertain. As 

 spring draws on, the remarkable song of the cocks, which 

 sounds not unlike the running down of a piece of clock- 

 work, may be heard on fine days, as they momentarily pause 

 from their almost incessant occupation of finding food, or 

 chase one another with more or less anger from twig to twig. 

 Among these flocks however the same disproportion of the 

 sexes often observed in other assemblages of Finches is said 

 to obtain, and occasionally, according to one observer, the 

 hens are fifty times as numerous as the cocks. 



Although this bird has been known to breed, as just 

 stated, in England, the several instances of its doing so, or 

 of its being observed with us in summer deserve particular 

 notice. In 1852 a nest, built in a furze-bush near Affpiddle 

 in Dorsetshire, was given by Mr. Charles Waldy, who declared 

 he saw the bird on it, to Mr. 0. Pickard- Cambridge, and 

 that gentleman believes a nest, found soon after in a similar 

 position at Bloxworth in the same county, to have been a 

 Siskin's. Mr. Jeffery reports (Zool. s.s. p. 1033) that a 

 pair built a nest and reared young in a garden at Owing 

 near Chichester in 1867. Latham, in a note to the edition 

 of Pennant's ' British Zoology ' published in 1812, states 

 that he received from Lewin a male and female shot in 

 summer in the hitter's garden in Kent. The late Mr. H. 

 L. Meyer informed the Author that in 1836 two Siskins' 

 nests, built in furze about three feet from the ground, were 

 found in Coombe Wood in Surrey. From these the eggs 

 were taken and hatched under Canary-birds, and as one of 

 the nestlings was kept by Meyer for at least two years, there 



