Birds by Land and Sea 



yards off to see the result. After much running and 

 wailing, the old bird came up and covered it. I then 

 advanced slowly, so as to give her the chance of 

 picking it up and bearing it off, if she were so 

 minded ; but she only waited until I was nearer to 

 get up so hurriedly as to overturn the chick, which 

 she left struggling on its back as she made off. I 

 repeated the -experiment several times, but in the 

 end had to put the chick back on to the embank- 

 ment where I had found it, as I could not get the 

 old bird to remove it. Upon visiting the spot at 

 seven o'clock the following morning, I found that 

 the chick was gone ; and I am still as far as ever 

 from solving the problem of how it came to be in 

 such a place, and how it got away. 



I have never found the bullfinch nesting in my 

 immediate neighbourhood, but on the 2ist May 

 lighted upon a nest in an ivy-clad thorn, overhanging 

 a pond in a small copse at Ashley. It contained 

 three eggs and a newly hatched chick, through the 

 transparent skin of whose stomach the yolk of the 

 egg from which it had been hatched was plainly 

 visible. Although at such a critical period, nest and 

 contents had evidently just been forsaken, the eggs 

 being cold and the chick dead. Such an act is cha- 

 racteristic of the bullfinch, for although so docile in 

 captivity, and although the female in the wild state 

 sits so closely that one may approach her almost 

 within touching distance, the bird is a lover of quiet 

 places, and resents intrusion. The spot chosen was 



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