94 BRITISH BIRDS. 



is described by Naumann as being very peculiar and interesting. In the 

 pairing-season they are in the habit of flying up into the air from the 

 top of a tree, describing a circle, and with fluttering wings and puffed- 

 out plumage and outspread tail, the wings sometimes almost meeting, 

 descending to the tree again, singing all the time a proceeding which is 

 by no means peculiar to this bird, but has also been observed of its near 

 relation the Serin, its more distant cousin the Snow-Bunting, the still 

 more distantly related Tree-Pipit, and even of such widely different birds 

 as the Wood-Sandpiper and Temminck's Stint. The song of the Siskin 

 is not very powerful, but is very pleasing a succession of very rapid 

 notes, some possessing considerable melody. It is an extremely indus- 

 trious singer, and may be heard all the year round except in the moulting- 

 season. The word Zeisig, which is one of the local names for the bird 

 in Germany, is supposed to be an imitation of the call-note of the male 

 to the female, and may best be expressed in English as tsyzing. The 

 ordinary call-note of the Siskin is a weak tit -tit -tit -tit. The food of the 

 Siskin is principally composed of seeds ; but it also eats buds and tender 

 leaves, whilst in summer it catches insects, and on these its young are 

 probably exclusively reared. 



The Siskin is a somewhat early breeder. Two broods are reared in the 

 year, the first eggs being laid in April .and the second in June. Some 

 early English ornithologists have described the nest as being found in 

 furze bushes within a few feet of the ground, in hedges, and even in 

 juniper bushes ; but some doubt attaches to these records, as more recent 

 observers in this country have found it in fir trees at a considerable 

 distance from the ground ; and Naumann, whose account of this bird 

 forms the basis of Dresser's description of its habits, says that the nest is 

 always in conifer trees at a great height, seldom less than 25 feet from 

 the ground. The next is extremely difficult to find, so much so that it 

 has given rise to the legend that the bird places among the eggs a small 

 stone which has the power of rendering the nest invisible. It is usually 

 placed in the fork of a horizontal branch at some distance from the trunk. 

 One in my collection obtained in Ross-shire, Scotland, on the branch 

 of a fir twenty feet from the ground, on the 30th of May, 1861, by 

 Alexander Macdonald, resembles that of the Greenfinch, but is smaller. 

 Upon a scanty foundation of grass-stalks mixed with a few heather-twigs, 

 the nest is built almost entirely of moss and roots, the finest material 

 being selected for the lining, in which is also a little vegetable down. 

 Other nests are described as having a few feathers in the lining. The 

 eggs are five or six in number, pale bluish green in ground-colour, with 

 dark reddish-brown spots and specks and an occasional streak, and with 

 underlying markings of pinkish grey. The markings on some eggs are 

 much more profuse than on others, but on almost all they are most 



