138 FRINGILLID^. 



usually placed in the fork * of a birch or willow — sometimes 

 very near the ground, or even, though rarely, in a tuft of 

 grass upon it, and seldom at a greater height than eight or 

 ten feet. It is almost always of remarkable neatness and 

 beauty, built of bents and a few small twigs, occasionally 

 intermixed with lichens and shreds of bark, and lined with 

 willow-down, feathers (chiefly such as are Avhite) or reindeer's 

 hair. The eggs, usually five or six in number, measure from 

 •77 to '61 by from '52 to "45 in.t In ground-colour they 

 vary from french- white to deep greenish-blue — especially when 

 fresh, and are marked with several shades of light red, 

 reddish-brown or, very exceptionally, even brownish-black : 

 some trace of marking is nearly always discernible but the 

 reddish colour is frequently diffused in pale freckles all over 

 the shell, while at other times it is collected in distinct spots 

 or blotches which occasionally form a zone. 



The breeding- season over, the various families collect in 

 flocks that ever increase as summer draws to a close and at 

 this season the cocks assume their most brilliant tints. In 

 the far north of Europe hardly a grove of alders or willows 

 by river or lake but then harbours a flock that finds more 

 than sufficient food in the countless insects which throng 

 such spots, and so these birds continue till the first frosts 

 check their supplies. As the temperature decreases with the 

 rapidly-lengthening nights a few weeks suffice to strip the 

 trees bare, and on the destruction of those leafy retreats, with 

 the in sect- worlds they sheltered, the Kedpolls have to adopt a 

 vegetable instead of an animal diet, in the pursuit of which 

 the flocks mostly quit their former haunts, betaking them- 

 selves whithersoever seeds, it matters little of what kind, are 

 to be found. By far the largest number set out on the annual 

 migration which in time brings them to this and other 

 southern countries, but no inconsiderable portion remain 

 in the land of their birth. These are fitted for the cold of an 



* In Norway the Editor once saw a nest placed in the top of a birch-stump the 

 middle of which had rotted away leaving a kind of cup, formed by the upstanding 

 bark, just of a convenient size to hold the bedding for the eggs. 



f A dwarf specimen, obtained by the late Mr. Wolley and now in the Editor's 

 possession, is the smallest bird's egg he has ever seen, being only "43 by "36 in. 



