4o 



My Garden Summer-Seat. 



BLUE TIT. 



oh ! the whispering and signalling that goes on if I give 

 any sign of consciously watching their performances. 



They are now quite 

 at their ease, unless 

 I stand on tiptoe 

 in the endeavour 

 to look into their 

 nest, and then 

 the whispers and 

 chatter begin. But 

 how cunning they 

 are ! Being thus 

 often observed, arid 

 desirous of hiding 

 their nest as much as they may, they have constructed 

 or placed it so that they can enter it both from above 

 and below ; and when I am watching, how they dodge 

 and dip and enter it either way. 



A chaffinch last year built in the corner of a disused 

 frame, which had become a receptacle for empty flower- 

 pots, &c, and reared 

 a brood in spite of 

 the gardener's con- 

 stant going about 

 the frame. The 

 chaffinch is not al- 

 ways so easily sat- 

 isfied. Do you see 

 that old apple tree 

 there just beyond 

 that cherry tree 

 and next to the 

 plum ? Well, just in the little hole where the branches 

 part from the bole a chaffinch has^had its nest for three 



THE CHAFFINCH. 



