548 HOMES WITHOUT HANDS. 



The lining of the Goldfinch's nest is unlike that which is used 

 by the chaffinch. The latter bird mostly employs hair, while the 

 former makes great use of vegetable down, such, as can be ob- 

 tained from the willow, the coltsfoot, and other plants. Like 

 other birds, the Goldfinch will not take needless trouble, and if it 

 can find a stray tuft of cotton wool, will carry it off and work it 

 into the nest. Sheep wool is also used for the same purpose ; but 

 the bird likes nothing so well as down, and will use it in prefer- 

 ence to any other material. On this soft bed repose the five 

 pretty eggs, white, tinged with blue, and diversified with small 

 grayish-purple spots. Now and then a small streak is seen ; but 

 the spots are the rule, and the streaks the exception. 



Altogether, it is hardly possible to find a more beautiful group 

 than is made by a pair of Goldfinches, their nest, and eggs. 



The nest of the Bullfinch (Pyrrhula vulgaris) is unlike that 

 of the goldfinch, though it is sometimes found in similar localities. 

 This bird seems to be rather capricious in its ideas of nest-making, 

 sometimes preferring trees, and sometimes building in shrubs. 



There was a little spinney which I once knew, in which were 

 any number of Bullfinch nests, the underwood being very attract- 

 ive to the birds. All the nests were built very low, seldom more 

 than four feet from the ground, and, to the best of my recollection, 

 were placed among the branches of hazel and dogwood. The 

 nest of the Bullfinch is by no means so neat and smooth as that 

 of the goldfinch, but is made in a much looser manner, the foun- 

 dation being formed of slender twigs, usually those of the birch, 

 and the inner wall of the nest woven of delicate fibrous roots. 

 This wall is flimsy in structure, rather shallow, and neither so 

 deep nor so round as that of the goldfinch. The lining is made 

 of similar materials, but of a finer kind. 



The quantity of sticks used as the foundation for this nest 

 varies according to the kind of branch on which it is placed ; for 

 when the bird selects a forked twig, such as that of the hazel or 

 dogwood, it uses a considerable quantity of sticks ; but when it 

 places its nest on the nearly horizontal spray of the fir, it finds a 

 sufficient foundation ready made, and only just lays a few twigs 

 to fill up a blank space. The egg of the Bullfinch is something- 

 like that of the goldfinch, but larger and more conspicuously 

 spotted. 



In some works upon the eggs and nests of birds, the Bullfinch 



