HAWFINCH. 533 



terial varies much in different nests, but it is never ab- 

 sent ; in some it is only very sparingly placed among the 

 twigs ; in others the greater part of the nest is composed 

 of it; the lining consists of fine roots and a little hair. 

 The whole fabric is very loosely put together, and it re- 

 quires considerable care to remove it from its situation 

 uninjured." 



In a letter from Mr. Henry Doubleday, the situations 

 of five nests are thus noticed ; one was built in a white- 

 thorn, one on the head of a pollard hornbeam, a third 

 twenty-five feet from the ground on a spruce fir, the fourth 

 on a tall red cedar, the fifth in a holly. Joseph Gurney 

 Barclay, Esq., who lives at Leighton, on the London 

 border of Epping Forest, pointed out to me a nest of this 

 bird in an apple tree in his garden. This gentleman had 

 also taken a nest from a tall whitethorn on the forest. 

 The nest in this instance was formed of twigs laid across 

 the branches in various directions as a frame-work or 

 foundation of support ; and the whole of the upper part 

 was composed of gardener's bass, wreathed in circles, and 

 mixed with a few fine roots. A nest brought to me, 

 containing three eggs and one young bird, which was taken 

 from a tall fir tree near Bexley, had a flat under surface 

 of dead twigs of fir and birch, nearly as thick as a wheat 

 straw, with fibrous roots and grey lichen laid flat upon 

 them, the structure resembling the platform nests made by 

 Doves and Pigeons. 



Mr. Doubleday says, " The eggs vary in number from 

 four to six, and are of a pale olive green, spotted with 

 black, and irregularly streaked with dusky grey. Some 

 specimens are far less marked than others, and I have seen 

 some of a uniform pale green ;" the length eleven lines by 

 eight lines and a half in breadth. 



