THE FINCHES 111 



is evidence, in my opinion, wanting to show that some actions which 

 have all the appearance of being intelligent, and may even now have 

 become so, have had a similar, or even a more purely physical, origin. 

 The subject is interesting, but has been badly neglected. 



As the domed nest is no doubt an advance upon the open one, 

 and as no other finch in our islands (if it be not Passer montanus) 

 builds in this way, it may be argued that our little homely town 

 brownie stands first as an architect. As an artist, however, all must 

 admit that he is greatly excelled by the chaffinch, whose dainty little 

 cup of moss and lichen sometimes to be seen in our hedges, more 

 often not to be, in trees is one of the most beautiful and charming 

 objects produced by any British bird. This most attractive family 

 residence is completed by the hen in the space of three weeks, for 

 though the male attends her when she is thus busied, yet it is only to 

 gaze and admire, or, at most, he will sometimes, though rarely, collect 

 materials to pass into her shaping bill. Harting, 1 at least, and 

 others would thus limit his capacities, but it is to be observed that 

 Naumann 2 does not entirely corroborate this, but gives some share 

 of the work to the male. He seems to imply for the meaning is not 

 quite evident that, in the first enthusiasm of the enterprise, he 

 works with the hen, but that his assistance becomes more and more 

 irregular, till at last he ceases to proffer it, and only sings. 



Besides the ordinary moulding and shaping of the material by 

 the pressure of the breast and wings, and the use of the beak, it has 

 been supposed that a firmer adherence of the component parts to one 

 another is secured by the bird's employment of its saliva, in order to 

 cement them together. This is a point on which, perhaps, more 

 evidence is needed, but that spiders' webs are made use of for a 

 similar purpose is matter of common observation. 3 The interior of 

 this sweet little snuggery is a perfect idyll of cosiness. Wool, soft, yet 

 elastic, supports a smooth one might almost say a polished lining 



1 Birds of Middlesex. 



2 Naturgeschichte der Vogel Mitteleur&pas, iii. 



3 Before it had become so, it was recorded by Brehm and Waterton. 



