3 2 



THE GOLDFINCH 



The habits of the hedge-sparrow are solitary. It frequents 

 hedges, thickets and woods, its nest, built of green moss, roots, 

 and wool, lined with hair, being finished early in March. The eggs, 

 four or five in number, are of a delicate and spotless bluish-green 

 colour, and the first brood of birds is hatched in April, and a second 

 brood further on in the season. The cuckoo often places, not lays, 

 her eggs in the second brood nest of the hedge-sparrow. The food 

 consists of worms, insects, the young being entirely fed with cater- 

 pillars, and other larvae, also small seeds, but not any cultivated 

 fruit. In winter it visits homesteads and is very confiding, grateful 

 for crumbs and other food scattered about dwellings. Alas ! 

 for its benign services, schoolboys rob the nest, and many adult 

 birds are shot on " seed trails," or captured beneath baited, propped- 

 up sieves pulled down by a string during severe weather. 



The GOLDFINCH (Carduelis elegans), Fig. 28, included in the family 



FIG. 28. THE GOLDFINCH ON THISTLE. 



Fringillidae or Finch kind, and sub-family Fringillinae, is the most 

 esteemed of the hard-billed British birds, for the colour of its 



