82 BRITISH BIRDS, WITH THEIR NESTS AND EGcs 
months haunts commons, hedgerows, plantations, small woods, orchards, and shrub- 
beries, in all of which situations I have very often found its nest, the latter being 
most frequently constructed in a furze-bush or hawthorn-hedge, though I have 
taken many a nest from hazel-branches in a plantation, from evergreen and other 
shrubs, from tangled bramble, sometimes almost or quite on the ground, from 
currant and gooseberry bushes, and even from tufts of heather. 
In size, strength, and materials, the nest varies considerably, but it is always 
tolerably compact, and rarely so large as that of a Greenfinch: among those which 
I took under the impression that they differed, I selected eight for my collection 
all of them dissimilar in character, five of these which I took in 1883 I thus 
described in the “ Zoologist” for that year:—‘‘only one had any moss in its con- 
struction; this one is somewhat slightly built for the species, but the walls are 
strengthened with coarse straws, evidently selected from a dung-hill. The second, 
excepting that it is not so deep, is not at all unlike a small nest of the Yellow 
Bunting. Its construction is, however, decidedly firmer, and the grasses used in 
the walls are similar to what one sees in the nest of the Greater Whitethroat. 
The third nest is untidy, loosely put together, and has blackish straggling roots 
projecting from the sides. The fourth is unusually deep, and is formed of roots, 
fibre, and wool, with a few white hairs towards the interior. The fifth is very 
ragged in construction, formed of coarse bleached roots, lined with fine fibre and 
wool.” 
The eggs number from four to six, five being the usual clutch; they are 
either pale bluish-green or pale buffish; those of young birds being occasionally 
unspotted, but most eggs spotted, speckled, blotched, and sometimes (though rarely) 
streaked with reddish- and purplish-brown; the markings are usually most numerous 
at the larger end, the dark spots now and then forming a subterminal zone. 
The flight of this bird is swift and undulating; as it flies it usually twitters; 
in the autumn and winter when Linnets collect into flocks, often of considerable 
size, and pass over the fields in search of food, this twittering is especially char- 
acteristic. The bird-catchers declare that the birds say “ ¢e//, dell, tell” as they fly, 
and at a distance from the flock you can understand what is meant by this 
rendering, but when you get three or four Linnets under a sloping roof in a good 
sized aviary, and listen attentively as they fly together from end to end, you find 
that what they really say is—‘“‘ turvra, tit, furra, turra, turra.” 
The ordinary call of the Linnet is a rather high pitched /avt, ‘wit; the sexual 
call is ¢e-cwy; the call of the young for food is chin, chiwi, chiwi; the song, to my 
mind, has been too much extolled; it is pretty enough, but there is too much 
chuckle and too little brilliance in it; the notes give one the idea of whistling 
