CHAFFINCH. 51 



year or two since. But the hedge side is the rule. The eggs, 

 three to five in number, and often very round in shape, vary 

 considerably in individual cases, but never so much as to leave 

 the accustomed eye in a moment's doubt as to what bird the egg 

 belongs to. Of a white ground-colour, scarcely tinged at all 

 with vinous red, or perhaps much suffused, all of them are 

 streaked and veined and spotted with dark brown with a shade 

 of red in it. They are beautiful eggs to my eye. Fig. 3, plate IF. 



95. GIRL BUNTING (Emberiza drlns). 



French Yellow-Hammer, Black-throated Yellow-Hammer. 

 A bird long overlooked by our native ornithologists, and perhaps 

 more frequently occurring than is even yet suspected, Still it 

 is by no means a very common bird, though identified as oc- 

 curring in, perhaps, most of the southern counties. The Rev. 

 Orpen Morris, from whose work on British Birds and Eggs I 

 have taken the two pro T ~iicial names given above, says, " the 

 nest is placed in furze or low bushes, and is usually made of 

 dry stalks of grass and a little moss, lined with hair and small 

 roots. Some are wholly without moss or hair . . . the 

 small roots constituting the lining. The eggs are four or five 

 in number, of a dull, bluish white, streaked and speckled witli 

 dark brown. They vary muc T \ in colour and markings." *Fiy. 4, 

 plate IV. 



96. ORTOLAN BUNTING (Emberiza hortulana). 

 Ortolan, Green-headed Bunting. Merely an occasional visitor 

 nesting in Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Lapland. 



Ill FEIJSTGMLLIDJE. 

 97. CHAFFINCH- (Fringilla Calebs}. 

 Spink, Pink, Twink, Skelly, Shelly, Shell-apple, Scobby, Shilfa, 

 Buckfinch, Horsefinch, Copperfinch, Whitefinch, Beechfinch, Wet- 

 bird. One of our most beautiful birds is the male of this species 

 one of quite the most beautiful of our English nests is its nest. 

 It would be a shame if he, with his gay dress and handsome 

 appearance, were the bachelor he is called in his Latin name. It 

 is, however, only at one period of the year that the sexes in the 

 Chaffinch tribe (as in many other kincLs of birds) separate. The 

 song of the Chaffinch, though not of great compass or variety, is 

 very cheery and sweet, and very different from his melancholy 

 sound of " Weet, weet," which many country people take as a 

 prognostication of rain ; whence his local name of "Wet-bird. The 

 nest, always in a tree-fork or bush or hedge, always firmly and 

 securely built in, always contrived and fashioned with a wonderful 

 ompactuess, neatness and beauty, is formed of mosses, with 



