CHAFFINCH. 79 
Sup-ramity FRINGILLINA. 
CHAFFINCH. 
FRINGILLA c@LEBs, Linn. 
Pl. XII, figs. 18-20; and Pl. XXXVII,. fig. 9. 
Geogr. distr.—Throughout Europe from the extreme West to the 
Ural range and southwards into N. Africa; travels northward in 
summer and southward in winter; is extremely common in Great 
Britain, even to the north of Scotland. 
Food.—Insects, seeds, berries, and fruits. 
Nest.— Usually firmly and neatly constructed of moss, a few lichens, 
and some spiders’ web, lined with fine roots and hair mixed with or 
completely covered with a layer of thistle-down. 
Position of nest.—Most frequently in hawthorn hedges, especially 
when they enclose an orchard, but also often placed in forks of young 
fruit trees, or on moss-covered boughs of old apple trees. 
Number of eggs.—4-6; more often the former. 
Tume of nidification.—IV-VIII; end of May, 
In the ‘ Zoologist,’ vol. vii., p. 492, I have mentioned two 
nests which I took in 1882 and 1888, the first of which is 
“youghly constructed of roots and fibre, with very little 
adornment of moss and lichen, but a fair sprinkling of fine 
worsted” ; the lining is, as usual, of hair and thistle-down ; 
the second nest is chiefly remarkable from the fact that a 
conspicuous white feather is introduced into the outer wall. 
The blue variety of the egg on Plate XXXVII. was one of 
a clutch of four taken on the 13th May, 1882, from a haw- 
thorn hedge; the nest was pointed out to me by my good 
friend Dr. John Grayling, of Sittingbourne, Kent; both 
bird and nest were perfectly normal, and I was not a little 
surprised to see the close resemblance which the eggs bore 
to those of some varieties of the egg of the Bullfinch, which 
I had taken in previous years. A curiously imperfect and 
very shallow nest was taken by Mr. Oliver Janson from a 
hawthorn hedge at Albury in Hertfordshire, June, 1884; it 
contained four eggs, all of the blue type figured on Plate 
XII. (fig. 19), but entirely without markings, and with only 
arusset tinge at the larger end: this nest is now in my 
collection. 
The Chaffinch is double-brooded. 
