30 OUR RARER BRITISH BREEDING BIRDS. 



journeyed to the place again the following week end, 

 but were dismayed to discover that all the nests we 

 had previously seen in accessible situations had been 

 destroyed. They were overturned and hanging to 

 the slender branches, and their contents lying broken 

 on the ground below. One gardener had seen 

 Cuckoos flying in and out of the trees, and said that 

 the mischief had been wrought by them, but another 

 older and shrewder man harboured an opinion that 

 the nests had been prodded out by cowherd boys 

 with their long sticks. My brother found the nest 

 figured in the accompanying illustrations just as 

 we were leaving the grounds. It was situated 

 near the end of a slender downward trailing branch 

 of a sycamore tree, and overhung a path bounded 

 on one side by a high wall, and gave us con- 

 siderable difficulty in photographing it. 



I know places both in Norfolk and Devonshire 

 where the Goldfinch breeds in small numbers still. 

 It appears to be partial to gardens and orchards, and 

 builds in fruit trees, sycamores, and evergreens. Its 

 nest is made of rootlets, moss, grass, wool, spiders' 

 webs, lichens, and lined with willow down, hairs and 

 feathers. 



The eggs, although smaller than those of the 

 Greenfinch and Linnet, are similar in coloration 

 and markings, so that careful identification is neces- 

 sary. This is an easy matter, however, when the 

 bird is brooding, for the observer has no difficulty 

 in watching her on to her nest. 



GOOSANDER. 



ALTHOUGH absolute proof of this species breeding 

 in the British Islands was not forthcoming until 



