BRITISH BIRDS. WITH THEIR NESTS AND EGGS. 



The nest of the Twite is usually built low down in heather, sometimes even 

 on the ground among grass, or on a rocky ledge ; it is also said to occur in 

 bushes, and occasionally in ivy : it is neatly formed of rootlets, or heather inter- 

 mingled with grass-bents, and is lined with wool, hair and feathers, or thistle-down. 

 The eggs number from four to six, usually five, are pale greenish blue, speckled, 

 spotted, blotched, or streaked with reddish-brown ; they are indistinguishable from 

 those of the Linnet, though most observers seem to agree in saying that they are 

 more frequently streaked than eggs of that bird. As a matter of fact, if a number 

 of eggs of the Goldfinch, Lesser Redpoll, Twite, and Linnet were indiscriminately 

 mixed, no living Ornithologist could sort them again with any degree of confidence : 

 they all vary in size, depth, and tint of colouring and markings. 



Although I am satisfied that the Twite could, as easily as other Finches, 

 complete its nest in two or three days provided it was ready to lay, Saxby has 

 recorded an instance in which both sexes were occupied for eight days in completing 

 one : this is often the case at the commencement of the breeding season,* when 

 the birds are in no special hurry, just as with Canaries in the breeding-cage, but 

 there is no such trifling with the second structure. Although a late breeder, not 

 commencing nidification before the middle of May, the Twite is double-brooded. 



It is probable, as in the case of allied species, that this bird feeds partly upon 

 small caterpillars, as well as the leaves and unripe seeds of weeds. In confinement 

 it is passionately fond of soft food. 



From time to time I have had Twites brought to me by bird-catchers ; and, 

 in 1889, I purchased two males and turned them loose in one of my cool aviaries : 

 they very soon became fairly tame, but nothing like so confiding as Redpolls ; they 

 nevertheless sang from the first. Most birds are selfish, but very few are so per- 

 sistently greedy, and spiteful withal, as Twites : I had some Canaries in the same 

 aviary ; and, as they had barely completed their moult, a saucer of egg-food was 

 daily placed in the aviary for their benefit ; no sooner, however, did the Twites 

 discover that egg was good, than they simply took possession of the saucer, savagely 

 attacking every Canary that attempted to come near it until their somewhat 

 voracious appetite was sated. 



In the spring of the following year my Twites began to assume the rosy 

 colouring on the lower back and rump, but before they had fully developed it, 

 they caught enteric fever from a sick Canary, and, early in June, both of them 

 died. I never cared to purchase others. 



In the first volume of the " Avicultural Magazine," p. 118, Mr. G. C. Swailes, 



* Nevertheless Mr. Swailes' experience recorded below proves that, in confinement, the Twite builds as 

 rapidly as the Canary ; the nest being built in two days. 



