348 SYLVIADA. 
structure, and without any apparent power of endurance, 
these birds brave the severity of our rigorous winters, and 
are among the earliest breeders in spring, the invitation 
songs of the males being frequently heard by the end of 
February. The nest is placed under a branch of a fir, and 
generally towards the end of the bough, being supported - 
by two or three of the laterally divergmg and pendant 
twigs, which are interwoven with the moss of which the 
outside of the nest is principally composed. The nest thus 
sheltered by the fir-branch above it, as shown in the vig- 
nette at the end, is frequently lined with feathers; and, 
both for security and architecture, is one of the prettiest 
examples to be found among our indigenous nest-makers. 
So confident and bold, also, is the female when sitting on 
her nest, as to allow very close observation without flying 
off. She lays from six to ten eggs, of a pale reddish white, 
six lines long and five lines in diameter. Colonel Mon- 
tagu, who timed the visits of a female to her nest of eight 
young ones which he kept in his room, found that she 
came once in each minute and a half or two minutes, or, 
upon an average, thirty-six times in an hour; and this 
continued full sixteen hours in a day. The male would 
not venture into the room; yet the female would feed her 
young while the nest was held in the hand. Mr. Selby 
says, in reference to the early breeding of this species, that 
he has known the young birds to be fully fledged as early 
as the third week of April. 
The Gold Crest appears to be distributed generally over 
the whole of the south of England and in Wales, and is 
mentioned by Mr. Thompson, and others, as common and 
indigenous to Ireland. In the counties north of London it 
is also plentiful; and on the eastern coast, at the end of 
autumn, this species occasionally arrives in flocks. Mr. 
