102 BRITISH BIRDS. 
in the moulting-season, and is usually not regained until the following 
spring. Some of the birds will, however, sing after recovery from the 
moult, and may be heard at intervals throughout the autumn. In addition 
to the call- and alarm-note of pink, pink, pink, common to both sexes, there 
is another note which is peculiar to the male, and which is only uttered 
in the pairing- and breeding-seasons. It is something like the call-note 
of the Willow-Wren, only much louder, and not at all plaintive. It may 
be expressed as a clear whit. The call-note as the bird flies in small 
parties is a sip, sip, sip. In the Engadine in the autumn I noticed that 
the Chaffinches at rest in the pine trees occasionally uttered a sound lke 
the word kurrt. 
In March the Chaffinch seeks the hedgerows and the open places; but 
at nightfall it always retires to the shrubberies and evergreens to roost ; 
and if the weather be cold and cloudy, it remaims in the shelter of 
such places. Although the bird loves the warm shelter of evergreens, 
it seldom builds its nest in them, but seeks the branches of deciduous 
trees. The site for the nest is varied. It is often in the forked branches 
of a hawthorn, only a few feet from the ground, or on the lichen- and 
moss-covered branches of the birch and ash trees, far up in the tower- 
ing branches of the oak, the alder, and the poplar, and on the lowly 
branches of the holly, more rarely in the yew, and frequently in the 
gorse shrubs. A favourite situation is in the fruit-trees in the garden 
and orchard. Dixon mentions a curious site for the nest of this bird :— 
“On the banks of the river Derwent, amongst the frowning hills of the 
High Peak, I once found a Chaffinch’s nest built under a tuft of grass 
growing on the side of a wall bordering the river. The materials of 
the nest were so closely woven with the grass that it required no other 
support ; indeed other support was wanting, and the nest hung suspended 
over the roaring stream. It contained five eggs, and the female was 
sitting quietly upon them.” My friend Mr. C. Doncaster also con- 
tributes the following note on a remarkable Chaffinch’s nest, also in the 
Peak district :—~ On an old thorn tree by the river Derwent, near Baslow, 
the stem of which was covered with ivy, I saw a long strip of moss, two 
feet long and four inches wide, attached to the ivy. I did not suspect 
that it was a nest; but touching it with my stick, a Chaffinch flew 
off from a nest with four eggs, about ten feet from the ground. On 
looking closely I was astonished to find that this two feet of moss was 
attached to and hanging from the nest, and that it was all manufactured 
by the bird, containing also lichen and wool, and the whole was attached 
to the ivy by horsehair. There was no moss on the tree growing 
naturally, and it was evidently a device for the concealment of the nest. The 
amount of material woven together in the part that hung down would be 
several times more than that used in the nest itself.”’ 
