92 WOODLAND CREATURES 



young were by heat. The weather was very warm 

 from the time they hatched until they left the 

 nest, and the sight of them lying gasping in the 

 strangest attitudes about the nest did much to 

 convince me that the choice of a nesting site 

 (nearly always in the heart of a thick, deeply 

 shaded bush, for preference an evergreen) is due 

 to the bullfinch seeking shade and coolness such 

 as the heart of a young fir tree affords. 



At fifteen days old the young bullfinches were 

 fully fledged, and the frail nest threatened to give 

 way with their weight, but the next morning, 

 the sixteenth day, saw it relieved of its burden. 

 They were sitting on the edge of it, looking at 

 the, to them, wide world of fir trees and bramble 

 bushes, when I came into view between the spruces. 

 The sight decided them : with one accord they 

 tumbled into the trees. I had a glimpse of five 

 pale greyish-white editions of their parents flitting 

 a little uncertainly through the dark boughs, also 

 a momentary vision of the gay cock and his demure 

 mate leading them away. For a little longer I 

 heard the melancholy call-note of the old birds, 

 and then the bullfinch family, fairly launched into 

 the wide world, had vanished for good. 



This family flew on the sixteenth day after 

 hatching, the neighbouring young ones on the 

 fourteenth or fifteenth ; in both cases incubation 

 took fourteen days ; and in the case of the nest 

 that I watched carefully it was thirty-two days 

 from the time the first egg was laid until the young 

 fled, which was on June 8th. 



