204 TREATISE ON 



diseases, they are the same as those of the gold- 

 finch, and must be treated in a similar manner. 



" The chaffinch with us is a stationary bird, but 

 in Holland it is knoT\Ti to migi-ate; and great 

 numbers of male chaffinches migrate from the north 

 to this island in winter. 



Of the Nest and Eggs. 



The nest of the chaffinch is beautifully and 

 artfully contrived. Except the nests of the gold- 

 finch and golden-crested wren, none exceed it in 

 beauty; and the very spots where it chooses to 

 buUd are generally romantic — in the cleft of a 

 branchlet, or among the decaying hoary twigs of 

 old apple trees, — ^in the topmost boughs of high 

 hedges; and once we found one on the branch of 

 a tree overhanging a public road, and close by the 

 footpath. The nest is composed of fibres, moss, 

 withered grass, and slender sticks, closely interwo- 

 ven with the gi*ey lichen, (commonly found in old 

 orchards,) whence arises the difficulty of discover- 

 ing it, the nest blending, as it were, with the very 

 branch on which it rests. Without a close inspec- 

 tion, therefore, or the keen investigation of a long- 

 practised observer, the little dwelling is scarcely 



