196 RURAL BIRD LIFE. 



and wants the sprightliness of the Chaffinch. But to 

 hear his song at its best we must hear several of the birds 

 singing together, when the various parts are uttered in 

 wild confusion : then we hear music beautiful in the 

 extreme. 



When the Chaffinch quits the shrubberies, a few weeks 

 after the vernal equinox, the Greenfinch repairs to them 

 in large numbers for the purpose of nesting. The 

 Greenfinch, though not what we can class as a strictly 

 gregarious bird in the summer months, is still one very 

 sociable amongst its kind ; and we often find numbers 

 of their nests within a very small area, sometimes two in 

 the branches of the same tree. Although the birds 

 breed in large numbers amongst the evergreens in shrub- 

 beries, still numbers of their nests are seen in the hedge- 

 rows, notably the whitethorn. We also find it fifty 

 feet or more from the ground, in the ivy growing up the 

 forest tree, amongst the brambles of the wild rose, 

 and now and then in the gorse. Few nests are more 

 beautiful than the abode of the Greenfinch. The out- 

 side part is made of moss, dry grass, and wool, through 

 which a few slender twigs are sometimes entwined ; 

 while the inside is lined with moss in the first place, then 

 hair, and feathers, and wool. It is not so neatly woven 

 as the Chaffinch's nest, nor is it so well made or cleverly 

 concealed. We have much yet to learn even in the 

 simple matter of birds' nests. The Wren, we are told, 

 owes the compactness and beauty of her nest to her 

 slender beak and long legs ; yet the Chaffinch or Green- 

 finch, with her thick clumsy bill and comparatively short 

 legs, is able to* produce masterpieces of nest building. 

 The nests of the thick-billed birds in Britain are, take 

 them as a whole, by far the neatest, and more compactly 

 built than any of our soft-billed birds, many of whose 



