SCARLET BULLFINCH. 7 



the seeds of the reeds, among which it likes to live. The same 

 authority informs us that it nests among the woody plantations in 

 the neighbourhood of St. Petersburg. Jaubert says it will also eat 

 insects. 



The nest is formed of wool, dry grass stalks, and twigs, and lined- 

 with feathers and horse-hair. It lays five or six eggs, light green, 

 spotted at the larger end with small black dots. 



Brehm, in Badeker's work upon European eggs, has the following 

 notice of the nidification of this bird: — "They nest in the thick woods 

 and bushes of Siberia, in Lausatia, in the neighbourhood of Galitz, 

 in Galicia, and in Poland — near AVarsaw, where it is found in swampy 

 situations overgrown with alder trees. Once, in June, it was met 

 with, paired, in Renthendorf. The nest is placed in a bush, and is 

 made of moss, sticks, dry twigs, and sheep-'s wool, and is lined with 

 hair and wool. The eggs are a lively blue green in colour, more 

 or less marked with black or brownish dots and spots on the larger 

 end. They are inclined to pear-shape in form, without, like the other 

 Bullfinches, being swollen in the middle." 



The male in breeding plumage has the small feathers in the nostrils 

 and around the neck, of a dull rose-colour; the base of all the 

 feathers, as well as a narrow streak along the shafts, of a brown red; 

 rump, sides of the head, throat, front of neck, and chest, of a bright 

 or rose crimson; belly and abdomen of a pure white; back and wing- 

 coverts ashy brown, tinged with a little red towards the extremity or 

 tips of the feathers; quill feathers of both wings and tail blackish 

 brown, bordered with reddish; tail forked, beak and feet brown. 



The female has all the upper parts of an olive brown. Wing 

 coverts tipped with white, forming two bands across the wing. 

 Primaries and tail feathers darker olive brown; secondaries slightly 

 bordered with white. Throat and cheeks regularly spotted with 

 brown; front of neck and all the under parts of a greyish white, 

 marked with large longitudinal spots of dark brown; middle of belly 

 without sjjots. It is stated that the male adopts in winter the plumage 

 of the female.- — (Temminck.) 



The young males are not red in the first year; they have a remote 

 similarity to the female of our Linnets, but are distinguished from 

 them by having more of a greenish tint pervading the whole plumage, 

 especially through the yellowish borders of the wing feathers; the 

 head, under part of the neck, back, and shoulders, as well as the 

 wing coverts, are brown grey, but something brighter on the borders 

 of those feathers which are of a greenish colour; rump dirty yellow 

 green; the dirty white throat has clown its sides small brownish 



