56 LAKES AND RIVERS. 



In a little hedge of furze, so close that as we went 

 through it we nearly tore our clothes, we disturbed a 

 blackbird (T. merula) from its nest, with four young 

 ones and an egg not hatched. I did not molest a 

 goldfinch, which had her nest and four eggs nearly 

 ready to chip, in the opposite fork of the same tree. 



NEST OF THE GOLDFINCH. 



We found a deserted linnet's nest (Fringilla canna- 

 bind) lined with the down of a peculiar thistle, a 

 native of the pampas which ran riot in the garden 

 of a cottage " to let " not far off. Barnes related 

 how he had taken, the preceding May, a nest and 

 eggs of Savi's Warbler in a fen in Cambridgeshire,, 

 and produced a photograph of the nest, which was 

 entirely made of the common reed. 



We turned into a very narrow lane about a yard 

 wide. At one end was a stone wall, and the other 

 end was nearly blocked up with briers. Long grass 

 grew all over the path, and the brambles and clematis. 



