94. BRITISH BIRDS. 
is described by Naumann as being very peculiar and interesting. In the 
pairing-season they are in the habit of flying up into the air from the 
top of a tree, describing a circle, and with fluttering wings and puffed- 
out plumage and outspread tail, the wings sometimes almost meeting, 
descending to the tree again, singing all the time—a proceeding which is 
by no means peculiar to this bird, but has also been observed of its near 
relation the Serin, its more distant cousin the Snow-Bunting, the still 
more distantly related Tree-Pipit, and even of such widely different birds 
as the Wood-Sandpiper and Temminck’s Stint. The song of the Siskin 
is not very powerful, but is very pleasing—a succession of very rapid 
notes, some possessing considerable melody. It is an extremely indus- 
trious singer, and may be heard all the year round except in the moulting- 
season. The word Zeisig, which is one of the local names for the bird 
in Germany, is supposed to be an imitation of the call-note of the male 
to the female, and may best be expressed in English as ¢syzing. The 
ordinary call-note of the Siskin is a weak ¢it-tit-tit-tit. The food of the 
Siskin is principally composed of seeds; but it also eats buds and tender 
leaves, whilst in summer it catches insects, and on these its young are 
probably exclusively reared. 
The Siskin is a somewhat early breeder. Two broods are reared in the 
year, the first eggs being laid in April and the second in June. Some 
early English ornithologists have described the nest as being found in 
furze bushes within a few feet of the ground, in hedges, and even in 
juniper bushes ; but some doubt attaches to these records, as more recent 
observers in this country have found it in fir trees at a considerable 
distance from the ground; and Naumann, whose account of this bird 
forms the basis of Dresser’s description of its habits, says that the nest is 
always in conifer trees at a great height, seldom less than 25 feet from 
the ground. The next is extremely difficult to find, so much so that it 
has given rise to the legend that the bird places among the eggs a small 
stone which has the power of rendering the nest imvisible. It is usually 
placed in the fork of a horizontal branch at some distance from the trunk. 
One in my collection obtained in Ross-shire, Scotland, on the branch 
of a fir twenty feet from the ground, on the 30th of May, 1861, by 
Alexander Macdonald, resembles that of the Greenfinch, but is smaller. 
Upon a scanty foundation of erass-stalks mixed with a few heather-twigs, 
the nest is built almost entirely of moss and roots, the finest material 
being selected for the lining, in which is also a little vegetable down. 
Other nests are described as having a few feathers in the lining. The 
eggs are five or six in number, pale bluish green in ground-colour, with 
dark reddish-brown spots and specks and an occasional streak, and with 
underlying markings of pinkish grey. The markings on some eggs are 
much more profuse than on others, but on almost all they are most 
