74 BRITISH BIRDS. WITH THEIR NESTS AND EGGS. 



berry bush, a hedge, or a large grass tussock, usually near water, is not unlike a 

 small, neatly formed, and very softly lined Linnet's nest ; it is firmly constructed 

 of plant-stalks, roots, moss, and dry-grass, with hair towards the interior ; the 

 lining consisting of pure white willow-down, wool, or occasionally very fine grasses 

 and feathers. The eggs, which number from four to six, are either pale blue, or 

 bluish white, with dark purplish brown surface spots, and sometimes short linear 

 dashes and underlying blood-red spots and speckles ; some eggs are spotted nearly 

 all over, and others principally at the larger end, an imperfect zone of spots is 

 often present at this extremity : there is considerable variation in size. 



I have not only seen and heard the Lesser Redpoll in Kent during the breeding 

 season, but have on several occasions flushed the hen bird from her nest ; twice 

 I obtained the nest with six eggs from grass-tussocks growing upon narrow foot- 

 paths through marsh and pools of water, at Murston,* and once from a hawthorn 

 bush on marshy land, at Kemsley ; the last-mentioned nest was less firm than 

 usual, though compact, the body of it being formed almost entirely of wool, with 

 an outer thin framework of dried grass and an inner lining of hair.f 



Lord Lilford (Birds of Northamptonshire, Vol. I, p. 196) observes: "About 

 Lilford these birds appear occasionally in flocks of from twenty to fifty or sixty, 

 almost always in very severe weather, and then haunt the alders by the river-sides, 

 their habits and manner of feeding at that season much resembling those of the 

 Siskin as above described. They are exceedingly tame, and may be very closely 

 watched as they cluster like bees on some hanging sprays, searching for buds, and 

 keeping up an incessant twittering music, pleasant enough, but not by any means 

 so melodious as that of the Siskin." 



Speaking of the nesting of the Lesser Redpoll in various parts of Norfolk, 

 Henry Stevenson says : " In these localities, the nests have been mostly found 

 in the apple and cherry trees, but Mr. Alfred Newton, in a communication to Mr. 

 Hewitson (Eggs British Birds, 3rd Bd.) remarks that near Thetford, where it also 

 breeds yearly, the nests are placed " close to the trunk of the tree in plantations 

 of young larch and firs of no great height," though he once found one at least sixty 

 feet from the ground, and placed near the outer end of a branch." 



In his "Notes on the Birds of Donegal," (Zoologist, 1891, p. 336) H. C. Hart 



* I was unfortunate with these two nests; in one of them the eggs were just ready to hatch, and were 

 so much injured in the attempt to blow them, that I did not preserve them : one egg of the second nest also 

 burst, but I saved the remainder. 



t Mr. Wharton ("Zoologist," p. 8951) also records the discovery of the nest of the Lesser Redpoll in Kent. 

 In the "Zoologist" for 1887, p. 428, Mr. Joseph Vine states that he found two very young birds of this species, 

 dead, but quite fresh, at Highgate, in September. One of these nestlings was taken in the flesh to the Rev. 

 H. A. Macpherson, for identification. He informs me that it could almost have flown, and had probably 

 fluttered out of the nest when alarmed by some marauder. 



