118 THE FINCHES 



The characteristic cup in a twig-tray, as one may call it, in 

 which the brooding hawfinch sits, is, as the work of a finch, a 

 large structure, yet, as might be expected by ornithological students 

 of character, so well is it concealed, withal, that the maker itself 

 is perhaps less elusive. The site is, by preference, an orchard 

 or aloof-standing forest tree beneath, or rather above a substantial 

 bough of which, it modestly hides itself from the gaze of terrestrial 

 seekers in which assurance, or strong hope, of safety, I, with com- 

 placency, leave it. 



Were it not for its greater size, the nest of the crossbill would be 

 as invisible as that of the siskin, being built of similar materials, and 

 concealed in much the same way. Placed, in the majority of cases, 

 near the summit of some tall fir-tree, whose intervening branches 

 shield it from below, the network immediately above it is so close as 

 to make it practically a domed l nest. It is thus made snow-proof, 2 

 a precaution which is the more necessary, inasmuch as the crossbill, 

 unlike other birds an abnormality, indeed, almost as great as his 

 structural one breeds at all seasons of the year, in winter as well as 

 in spring. 3 For the rest, though large, the nest is an admirable 

 structure, the base being formed of a quantity of small fir-twigs 

 mixed sometimes with heather and grass stems thickly quilted, as it 

 were, with moss and lichen, or with the last entirely, which, of a finer 

 quality often combined with grass or the filaments of tree-roots, 

 more rarely with a few feathers forms, also, the interior lining. 4 

 Warm amidst this, though the snow may whirl around her, and 

 " winter storms sing i' the tree," sits the female, who alone both builds 

 and broods, whilst the male flies backwards and forwards bringing 



1 Naumann, Naturgeschichte der Vbgel Mitteleuropas, iii. 2 Ibid. 



3 In fact in every month of the year. Ibid. 



4 The above account, which follows the interesting one of Nauinann, is to be understood as 

 applying par excellence to the continental type of the crossbill's nest, just as does that given 

 by Ussher and Warren (Birds of Ireland) to the British-Insular specimens more particularly. 

 It can hardly be doubted that climatic and other geographical differences must produce some 

 corresponding variations, either in the architecture of the nest or the materials used in its 

 construction, or in both, the more so that seasonal modifications are to be noted even within 

 the same locality. (See ante, " Classified Notes," p. 80.) 



