
NESTS AND EGGS. 
The eggs of the siskin (fig. 38) are five or six in number, of 
an oval shape, five-eighths of an inch in length and half an 
inch in breadth. ‘They vary considerably in their colour and 
markings, but the prevailing colour is a pale bluish-white, 
shaded at the thick end with purple and a few reddish-brown 
dots. 
ROCK AND WALL-BUILDING BIRDS. 
There are some birds whose breeding-places are neither 
woods nor commons, but wild rocky places, old ruins, walls 
near dwelling-places, and lofty trees near to houses. Most of 
the falcons and the raven belong to the first of these; jackdaws 
and owls belong to the second; starlings, redwings, sometimes 
the robin and the whitethroat, belong to the third; the magpies 
and others of their congeners to the fourth. 
A vision of the past rising before us, presents the ruins of an 
old sixteenth-century castle, with pointed turrets; the ancient 
* pnleasaunce” has returned to a state of nature, overgrown 
with thickets; a grove of ancient plane-trees, of the largest, 
dimensions, occupy one of its sides. The castle is the haunt of 
the barn-owl, the jackdaw, and a colony of pigeons, which 
have almost become wild from the deserted state of the 
place. Among the trees a colony of magpies had established 
their home, as long as we can remember, and many a fruitless 
effort had been made to scale the trees, but their girth was all 
too large and the branches too high for tiny limbs to accom- 
plish the adventure. In the mean time, from this vantage- 
ground, Mag, watching her opportunity, had pounced upon and 
carried off to her castle many a young chicken, almost from 
beneath then owner’s eye. At length the depredations could 
no longer be borne; a war of extermination was declared, which 
only terminated when the last of the magpies was destroyed. 
The nest of the Macrrm has been described at page 293. 
The eggs (fig. 20), from four to six, although differing greatly, are 
generally oval in form, an inch and a half long, rather pointed, 
and about an inch in diameter. They are frequently of a pale 
green, freckled all over with brown and purple, rather a dusky 
looking egg, but handsomely shaped. 
The JackDAw as well as the owl was a constant inhabitant in 
the ruins we have indicated. The former’s nest is built in some 
dark recess, but generally beyond the reach of the curious, under 
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