422 THE GREEN LINNET. 



nests in hedges, shrubbery, trees, sometimes in whins and ivy ; 

 eggs usually five, pale bluish white, speckled at the larger end 

 with brown spots ; but I have got them pure white. On 

 May 7th I got one in Abbey Park garden with five white 

 eggs. The nest was of dry grass, moss, and hay, a lot of 

 worsted, carpet oozings, bits of cloth, thread, &c, then a profuse 

 quantity of rabbits' fur ; lastly, lined with hair, but no feathers. 

 It was firmly knit together, 5 inches diameter over all, 2f by If 

 deep inside. I got another on an apple tree with five eggs, 

 nest similar, with some lichens like the tree. I got one in a 

 withered spruce fir branch, the outside made of the twigs broken 

 off the branch to resemble the place ; while in evergreens and ivy 

 I have got them composed of green moss to resemble the leaves. 

 On May 27th, 1858, I got one on a horizontal branch of an 

 apple tree seven feet up, which I noted as " the smallest green 

 linnet's nest I had seen, 4| by 3 deep outside, the cup 2J by 1 J 

 deep, composed of small roots, some of them ^ of an inch thick, 

 interwoven with moss and dry grass, lined with feathers, some 

 hair, wool, bits of worsted, thread, down, and tow ; also with 

 five white spotless eggs." I had doubts of the bird, so lay till 

 she returned. Some authors say — " It has no song worthy of 

 the name of song," but I have heard it sing very sweetly. On 

 May 26th, 1858, when rambling through Kinglassie Wood I 

 lay down and listened to one. A lad with me, along with two 

 of my boys, having a catapult, killed it, against my wish, when 

 thus engaged, so I stuffed and have it still. I may say here 

 that the use of catapults was then a craze in the city, as this 

 note, written at the time, shows — 



" On May 7th, 1864-, several boys— two of them mine— were nest-hunting ; 

 a lad of fifteen having a catapult, killed every bird he fired at— out of eight 

 shots he killed eight birds — till my son took it from him. The birds were — 

 three green linnets, one brown linnet, two chaffinches, one gold-crested 

 wren, and one sparrow. They were nearly all killed instantaneously, some 

 of them twenty yards off. The same lad knocked a pigeon off the ridge of 

 the big granary at the harbour from the Kirk Hill— eighty yards off. 

 Being only stunned, a man picked it up and let it fly away ; but he killed 

 many pigeons; once a cat, struck on the head; also a wild duck, and a 

 partridge." 



I give this note merely to show the precision then arrived at by 

 this silent messenger of death. The following, called the " Song 

 of April," may be overdrawn — 



Awake, awake, from slumber rise, 



The earth begins to blossom ; 

 Tho' April tears till Nature's eyes, 



There's rapture in her bosom. 



