84 Birds I Have Kept. 



tiough from being of a particularly shy and retiring dispo- 

 sition it is not very often seen, except by those who are 

 accustomed to keep a look out for strange birds. 



In the centre of our old Brittany garden rose a stately fir 

 tree, I am not quite sure to -what species it belonged, but 

 it was a very handsome specimen, rising in true conical form 

 to what then appeared to me to be an extraordinary altitude, 

 but which subsequent experience has taught me was at least 

 a very respectable height. In summer time this great tree 

 was yearly tenanted by a pair of Magpies, of which bird 

 three couples usually built their nests in the garden, one, 

 as I have already stated, in the great cherry-laurel tree, 

 another in a huge pink thorn, and the third in this fir, at 

 its very summit; where one year they injured the terminal 

 shoot, in some way or other, so that it died, and was replaced 

 by two, which grew up and somewhat marred ever after the 

 perfect symmetry of its' shape. 



Many other birds, beside the Magpie, were in the habit of 

 using the fir as a nesting place. Chaffinches especially, which 

 found plenty of lichens close at hand among its branches to 

 cover their nests with; and one summer I found a ball of 

 moss, about the size of a cocoa-nut, hanging from the extremity 

 of one of its lower branches, at a distance of between four 

 and five feet from the ground. It was a perfect ball, as round 

 as possible, and was suspended by a few hairs, or threads; a 

 close scrutiny discovered a very small aperture on one side, 

 into which I inserted my finger, and amongst a mass of soft 

 warm feathers felt a number of tiny eggs, one of which I 

 gently rolled to the opening, and saw that it was pinky white; 

 I then replaced it, and hastened to inform my mother of the 

 discovery I had made, after effacing, as well as I could, the 

 marks of my rude intrusion into the little domicile. 



After examining the nest carefully, my mother confessed her 

 inability to tell me to what kind of bird it belonged ; nor was 

 Marie Baudoin, when summoned from the potato patch to assist 



