NOTES ON BIRDS. 



53 



THE GREENFINCH. 



The Greenfinch is a bird which stays with us all the winter, and 

 can be seen then in many a farmyard picking up seeds and grain. A 

 Greenfinch built this year on the Shurdington Road in a hawthorn 

 bush about six feet up. There was one egg in it on May 8th, and 

 the bird was so tame that it scarcely left the bush when I drove it off 

 the nest, and I had not left it half a minute before it was back on the 

 nest again. The nest is of sticks, moss, and dry grass, with a few 

 feathers. 



THE CHAFFINCH. 



The Chaffinch is a very common English bird, being, in some 

 parts of the country, as common as the Sparrow. Its nest is a model 

 of neatness, as it never has any loose ends hanging out, the whole 

 structure being firm and solid and bound together with cobwebs. It 

 is made of moss and lichen, and thickly lined with feathers. I found 

 my first ChaflSnch's nest this year on May 6th in a yew tree in a 

 garden, and though College boys were continually passing and 

 playing within twenty yards of it, it was not disturbed. If the nest 

 is built on a branch it is nearly always on the top of the branch, but 

 I once found one built underneath the branch like a Golden-crested 

 Wren's. 



THE BLACKCAP. 



The Blackcap is one of the warblers. The cock bird has its 

 head quite black, the hen bird having its head of a chocolate colour. 

 I have never found this bird's nest higher than three feet from the 

 ground, and the one I found this year, on May 8th, was only two feet 

 up. The eggs of the Blackcap are very like those of the garden 

 warbler, and I should never like to have to say to which of the two 

 an egg belonged unless I saw the bird first. 



THE CUCKOO. 

 The Cuckoo arrives in April and stays till August or September. 

 The bird has no nest of its own but usually lays in a Meadow Pipit's, 

 Robin's, or Hedge-Sparrow's nest, frequently turning out some of the 

 other birds' eggs to make room for its own, of which seldom more 

 than one is found in a single nest. As it is much too big a bird to 

 get into the nest and lay its egg, it lays it on the ground, and then 

 picks it up in its beak and puis it into the nest. 1 am on the look 

 out to see if Aristotle was right in saying that the young Cuckoo 

 frequently eats up its foster-parents. This sounds an impossibility, 

 but it may turn out the other young birds to get more room and food. 



