THE SISKIN. 277 



substance being put into tlieir cage, they destroyed 

 the nearly completed nest, and began to build 

 another of their favourite material. He describes 

 this second structure as " an elegant, warn>, cozy 

 little habitation, similar in construction to that of 

 the chaffinch, but of smaller dimensions." "It 

 "was," he says, "truly delightful to observe how 

 admirably these little songsters performed their 

 parental duties ; the female bird never once leaving 

 the nest, during the fourteen days of incubation, 

 and afterwards both birds watching and feeding 

 their callow brood, with unwearied patience and 

 unceasing fondness." 



If we consider that spot of the world in which 

 the bird rears its young to be its native land, tlien 

 the siskin can hardly be classed among our native 

 birds, for it only visits us during the winter, coming 

 just as the swallow departs, sometimes arriving 

 in Britain in considerable numbers ; at others, in 

 smaller Hocks. A few of the siskins, indeed, build 

 in some of the pine woods of the highlands of 

 Scotland ; and Sir William Jardine and Mr. Selby 

 saw these birds, in pairs, in the month of June, 

 near Killin, but from the great height of the trees 



