82 BRITISH BIRDS, THEIR EGGS AND NESTS. 
some birds, and as familiar to many of us as other and even com- 
-moner birds, by his frequent occupancy of a cage. “ Piping 
Bullfinches” are not very unusual even in this country. The Bull- 
finch is also one of those birds who have long been laid under pro- 
_ scription, for the mischief he is assumed to do to the buds of fruit 
trees. Like as rewards used to be customarily paid in hosts of 
places out of the Parish funds for the heads of Sparrows, Tomtits, 
&c., so has it been on a lesser scale with our present birds, and 
I cannot help thinking equally unjustly. No doubt the “ Olph” 
commits sad apparent havock on the blossom-buds; but I sus- 
pect the blossom-buds damaged by him (as it seems) would 
uever have come to anything if no Bullfinch had ever been 
near them. There was a grub in each of them, and that grub 
would have destroyed the bud quite as effectually, if not 
quite as summarily, as the bird which extracted it from what 
was alike its hiding-place and scene of active ravage and con- 
sumption. Unlike the Ring Dove and Missel Thrush, and a few 
other birds, which are usually very wild and shy, but at breeding 
time lay aside their wildness and distrust, and come to the close 
neighbourhood of human habitations to nest, the Bullfinch, in 
spring, leaves our gardens and orchards and resorts to the woods 
- and wilds. The nest is made of twigs and roots and moss, 
rather loosely constructed, and lined with wool and hair, and is 
most commonly placed ina good thick bush of considerable height 
and size; sometimes on a fir or other tree. The hen-bird lays 
four or five eggs of a pale greenish blue, streaked and spotted 
with purple-red, chiefly at the larger end.— Fig. 14, plate IV. 
* 410. PINE GROSBEAK—(Pyrrhula enucleator). 
Pine Bullfinch, Common Hawfinch.—Only a very rare visitor 
in our islands. 
