560 FRINGILLIM. 



terial varies much in different nests, but it is never absent ; 

 in some it is only very sparingly placed among the twigs ; 

 in others the greater part of the nest is composed of it ; 

 the lining consists of fine roots and a little hair. The whole 

 fabric is very loosely put together, and it requires consider- 

 able care to remove it from its situation uninjured." 



In a letter from Mr. Henry Doubleday, the situations 

 of five nests are thus noticed ; one was built in a white- 

 thorn, one on the head of a pollard hornbeam, a third 

 twenty-five feet from the ground on a spruce fir,J;he fourth 

 on a tall red cedar, the fifth in a holly. Joseph Gurney 

 Barclay, Esq., who lives at Ley ton, on the London border 

 of Epping Forest, pointed out to me a nest of this bird in 

 an apple tree in his garden. This gentleman had also taken 

 a nest from a tall whitethorn on the forest. The nest in 

 this instance was formed of twigs laid across the branches 

 in various directions as a framework or foundation of sup- 

 port ; and the whole of the upper part was composed of 

 gardeners' bass, wreathed in circles, and mixed with a few 

 fine roots. A nest brought to me, containing three eggs 

 and one young bird, which was taken from a tall fir tree 

 near Bexley, had a flat under surface of dead twigs of fir 

 and birch, nearly as thick as a wheat straw, with fibrous 

 roots and grey lichen laid flat upon them, the structure re- 

 sembling the platform nests made by Doves and Pigeons. 



Mr. Doubleday says, " The eggs vary in number from 

 four to six, and are of a pale olive green, spotted with 

 black, and irregularly streaked with dusky grey. Some 

 specimens are far less marked than others, and I have seen 

 some of a uniform pale green ;" the length eleven lines by 

 eight lines and a half in breadth. 



" The young are hatched about the third week in May, 

 and as soon as they are able to provide for themselves, 

 they unite with the old birds in flocks, varying in numbers 



