14 BIRDS' NESTS 



Chaffinches that had been taken out to New Zealand. 

 They were young birds, and had had no experience 

 of nest-building in England before their departure ; 

 turned out in their new home to forage for them- 

 selves, and in every way in a state of nature. This 

 nest is built in a fork of a branch, and shows none 

 of that wonderful neatness of fabrication for which 

 the Chaffinch is so justly famed in England. The 

 cup of the nest is small and loosely put together, 

 and the walls of the structure are prolonged for 

 about eighteen inches, hanging down the side of the 

 supporting branch. Indeed it more resembles in its 

 structure the nests of the American Hangnests 

 (Icteridas), with the exception that the cavity con- 

 taining the eggs is situated on the top. Clearly 

 these New Zealand Chaffinches were at a loss for 

 a design when fabricating their nest. They had no 

 standard to work by, no nests of their own kind 

 to copy, no older birds to give them any instruction. 

 Possibly these Chaffinches imitated in some degree 

 the nest of a New Zealand species ; or it may be 

 that the few resemblances this extraordinary struc- 

 ture bears to the typical nest of the Palaearctic 

 Chaffinch are the results of memory — the dim re- 

 membrance of the nest in which they were hatched, 

 but which had almost been effaced by novel sur- 

 roundings and changed conditions of life. There 

 can be little or no doubt that had these young 

 Chaffinches been hatched in an alien nest in England, 



