Anglesey 



In the end, when snipe had hummed and partridge 

 cried their last, and the bats had concluded a brief 

 activity, we too retired, meeting no living thing by 

 the way save toads and frogs habitual prowlers on 

 the open ways by night and glow-worms, whose 

 bright green spark glowed steadily in the dark grass 

 by the roadside. 



In the neighbourhood of China Rock we came 

 upon a greenfinch's nest in a furze bush forming 

 part of a hedgerow. I had often before noticed the 

 dirty condition of greenfinches' nests generally, but 

 I had never seen one in such a terrible state of filthi- 

 ness as that shown by this nest. The young and 

 there was a nest full of them fully fledged were 

 simply walled in by a rampart of their own castings, 

 which had been allowed to accumulate to a height 

 of about an inch all round the edge of the nest. 

 When one remembers the fastidious propriety of 

 most birds in this respect, and notes that the young 

 greenfinches themselves obey the instinct of young 

 birds generally to void their excrement at or over 

 the edge of the nest, to be removed if necessary by 

 their elders, one can only conclude that they get 

 lazier and dirtier as they grow older, until they reach 

 at times the state of degeneration exemplified in the 

 present instance. In spite of its condition, the nest 

 evidently proved an attraction to some one, for we 

 found later that both it and its contents had been 

 bodily removed. 



It is in approaching the wooded ridge before 

 229 



