Birds, 381 



boast so much neatness of architecture as birds. The nest of the 

 common chaffinch [Friiigilla ccelehs) for example, which everybody 

 has seen and more or less admired, is a perfect model of elegance. 

 Like the architects themselves, it possesses this quality without being 

 adorned with any superfluous ornament. Moss, lichens, wool, and a 

 few hairs and feathers, are the only materials of which it is construct- 

 ed ; and the situation in which it is placed, as well as the disposition 

 of the nest there, are admirable. In selecting a place to fix its nest 

 in, the chaffinch usually prefers a branch of the elm, oak or elder-tree, 

 close at its union with the trunk. We have frequently found them, 

 however, in a hawthorn, or on the pendulous bough of a silver fir, and 

 even in apple and pear trees which were trained against a wall. Pro- 

 fessor Rennie mentions finding one in a closely clipped privet hedge, 

 and another in a thick row of hollies ; but these instances he consi- 

 ders as rather singular.* Perhaps the most singular situation for such 

 a nest is one noticed by Cowper, and quoted by him as the origin of 

 his verses entitled " A Tale," which he tells us is " no fiction." " In 

 a block or pulley near the head of the mast of a gabert, now lying at 

 the Broomielaw, there is a chaffinch's nest and four eggs. The nest 

 was built while the vessel lay at Greenock, and was followed to Glas- 

 gow by both birds. Though the block is occasionally lowered for the 

 inspection of the curious, the birds have not forsaken it. The male, 

 •however, visits the nest but seldom, while the hen never leaves it, but 

 when she descends to the hulk for food." An instance, by no means 

 so curious as the above, but of no frequent occurrence, fell under my 

 notice in the spring of 1836. While searching amongst a row of wil- 

 lows, which overhang a pretty large stream, in Mid Lothian, for the 

 nest of a water-hen [GalUnula cliloropus), I stumbled upon that of 

 a chaffinch, fixed on a branch stretching across, and only elevated 

 about five feet from the water. It was composed of the usual mate- 

 rials, excepting that it was entirely destitute of feathers ; but their 

 place was comfortably supplied by a superabundant quantity of hair 

 and wool. Why the bird had been attracted to the rivulet I am una- 

 ble to comprehend, as the neighbourhood is everywhere intersected 

 with its proper retreats. 



A still more unusual locality for a nest was once chosen by a ring- 

 dove (Columba Palumhus). This bird had fixed its nest in a low 

 furze-bush, growing upon the slope of a considerable clay bank. The 

 twigs with which the nest was formed, were in some places curiously 



* Arcliitectiive of Birds, p. 264. 



