PLATE I 

 GREENFINCH. Fringilla chloris 



THIS nest was selected from some eighteen or twenty others found in one large 

 laurel hedge near Doune, Perthshire, as an excellent type of the Greenfinch's 

 nest, when it is near ploughed fields, being, under such conditions, frequently 

 almost entirely made of root-fibres picked up by the birds. The outside 

 of the nest was made of moss and coarse grass-roots, and it was lined with 

 very fine root-fibres, beautifully interwoven with a little hair. The bird was 

 very tame, and I almost succeeded in getting her into the plate on two 

 occasions, as she hopped from twig to twig round the nest. In the same 

 hedge, not far from the nest photographed, I found two nests on the same 

 branch, and only twenty-two inches apart, the one being almost directly above 

 the other. Both birds were sitting on five eggs when I found them. 



47 



