THE FAERY YEAR 



taken by bold climbers, yet the old birds did not 

 leave the place till 1862. The Bishop of Salisbury 

 of those days reared a tame raven, which came from 

 the Clumps. Some people believe the real cause 

 of their forsaking was the cutting of the bough 

 which year after year held their nest. I should 

 think this as likely to make the ravens leave their 

 old fastness as the robbery of their nest ; although 

 it is said that the coast ravens to-day will only build 

 in fearful crags, so that their nests cannot be reached 

 by a climber from below : places from whose 

 summits 



" The crows and choughs that wing the midway air, 

 Show scarce so gross as beetles." 



The Goldfinch Dormitory 



This cutting off the nesting bough reminds me 

 of a mistake I made a few months ago about the 

 goldfinches in my garden. A bough of a yew was 

 closely shorn, in which a pair of goldfinches had 

 nested in 1903 and 1904. This spring, looking in 

 vain for the nest in the tree, I concluded that the 

 birds had forsaken their old haunt owing to the 

 trimming. But one day in the summer, chancing 

 to look up into the other side of the yew tree, I saw 

 a young goldfinch all but fledged. It was packed 

 tight with its three companions in a most shapely 

 nest, which lay on a kind of platform of yew, and 

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