Their Eggs and Nests. ill 



principal, if not the sole, architect and builder. — Fig. 5, 

 plate IV. 



BRAMBLING OR MOUNTAIN FINCH— 



{Fringilla mon tifringilla). 



Brambling, Bramble Finch, Lulean Finch. — Only a 

 winter visitor to our shores, but still pretty generally 

 diffused throughout the kingdom at that season, 

 though never perhaps, strictly speaking, anything like 

 a common bird anywhere. It has been known to breed 

 in Scotland. 



TREE SPARROW— (P^jj^^ montanus). 



Mountain Sparrow. — This species has undoubtedly 

 been long and continually confounded with the 

 Common or House Sparrow- And even yet it has not 

 been satisfactorily proved to have occurred in very 

 many counties in England. Further observation may 

 do more yet in identifying the Tree Sparrow and de- 

 fining its localities. It nests in holes in pollard or 

 other trees, or in thatch, in company with other Spar- 

 rows of the common species, but in this case always 

 in holes entered from the outside, not from the inside 

 of the roof of the building. Sometimes it has been as- 

 certained to breed in nests made within deserted nests 

 of a Magpie, or some such bird. The nest, like that 

 of the Common Sparrow, is formed of dry grass or 

 hay, or fine straw, and abundantly lined with feathers 

 of all sorts. The eggs, four or five in general, are 

 distinctly less than those of the House Sparrow, and 

 with more decided brown in the markings on the 

 ground-colour of soiled white. — Fig. Q^ plate IV. 



