HAWFINCH. Nis) 
terial varies much in different nests, but it is never ab- 
sent ; in some it is only very sparingly placed among the 
twigs; in others the greater part of the nest is composed 
of it; the lining consists of fine roots and a little hair. 
The whole fabric is very loosely put together, and it re- 
quires considerable care to remove it from its situation 
uninjured.” 
In a letter from. Mr. Henry Doubleday, the situations 
of five nests are thus noticed; one was built in a white- 
thorn, one on the head of a pollard hornbeam, a third 
twenty-five feet from the ground on a spruce fir, the fourth 
on a tall red cedar, the fifth ina holly. Joseph Gurney 
Barclay, Esq., who lives at Leighton, on the London 
border of Epping Forest, pointed out to me a nest of this 
bird in an apple tree in his garden. This gentleman had 
also taken a nest from a tall whitethorn on the forest. 
The nest in this instance was formed of twigs laid across 
the branches in various directions as a frame-work or 
foundation of support; and the whole of the upper part 
was composed of gardener’s bass, wreathed in circles, and 
mixed with a few fine roots. A nest brought to me, 
containing three eggs and one young bird, which was taken 
from a tall fir tree near Bexley, had a flat under surface 
of dead twigs of fir and birch, nearly as thick as a wheat 
straw, with fibrous roots and grey lichen laid flat upon 
them, the structure resembling the platform nests made by 
Doves and Pigeons. 
Mr. Doubleday says, “'The eggs vary in number from 
four to six, and are of a pale olive green, spotted with 
black, and irregularly streaked with dusky grey. Some 
specimens are far less marked than others, and I have seen 
some of a uniform pale green ;” the length eleven lines by 
eight lines and a half in breadth. 
