BRITISH SONG-BIRDS. 185 



Of the Nest and Eggs, 



In spring they haunt gardens and orchards, or 

 plantations and shrubberies near gardens, where 

 they breed. The nest is artfully concealed among 

 the leaves and blossoms of apple and pear-trees, 

 generally placed on some limber branch, where 

 cats, &c. cannot get at it : — In shrubberies, they 

 select the tops of the thickest evergreens, or high 

 hedges, to build their nests in. The nest is un- 

 commonly neat, perhaps the prettiest structure of 

 any European small bird : It is somewhat like the 

 nest formed by the chaffinch, but stiU more neat, 

 more compact, and rather less ; it is composed of 

 hents and moss, mixed with wool and lichen or 

 that whitish green moss so often seen covering the 

 trunks and branches of old trees, and lined with 

 hair, covered with thistle-down and cotton from the 

 catkins of the willow, the cannach, or cotton grass, 

 &c. ; the eggs, five or six in number, are of a 

 bluish-white, sprinkled with a few small spots of 

 a reddish orange-colour. The hen is a very close 

 sitter. — Storms of wind, rain, or even hail, will 

 not drive her off the eggs to seek shelter; and the 

 cock-bird is tender and attentive to her while thus 



