CHAFFINCH. 79 



The female is of a dull g reen above ; the breast and belly of a brown 

 or dirty white ; the wings have the same markings as the male, but less 

 brilliant. 



This bird makes a most elegant nest of green moss, curiously studded 

 with lichen interwoven with wool, and lined with feathers and hair. It 

 builds against the side of a tree, particularly in ivy, or in some forked 

 branch of a bush ; but particularly in apple-trees overgrown with moss 

 and lichen, and, like many other birds, adapts the materials of its nest 

 to the surrounding colour ; an instinct of no small importance. 



*I am by no means inclined to agree with Montagu, in the doctrine 

 that birds designedly adapt the materials of their nests to the colour 

 of the objects around them. In the case of the pretty nest of the 

 Chaffinch, the materials, on the contrary, appear to me to vary accord- 

 ing to the opportunities the birds have of procuring them ; among 

 twelve specimens in my cabinet, no two are exactly alike, and most of 

 them differ very considerably. Some are formed with the finer sorts 

 of green moss from trees, (Hypnum tenellum, Lestrea sericea, L. 

 polyantha, &c.,) but more commonly small grey or yellow lichens 

 (JParmelia stellaris, P. perlata, Lecanora virella, &c.) are at least 

 stuck over the outside ; and, in one instance, which seems unique, the 

 thin bark scales of the American plane-tree (Platarius occidentalism) 

 Sometimes I have found the nest-webs of spiders bundled up into little 

 tufts, and stuck in similarly to lichens ; and in the vicinity of the 

 cotton factories at Catrine, in Ayrshire, I have seen many Chaffinches' 

 nests stuck over, in the same manner, with small tufts of cotton wool. 



But the indispensable substance in all these nests, how different so- 

 ever they may be in the outward materials, is fine wool, with which 

 the moss, lichen, spiders' nests, tufts of cotton, or bark scales, are 

 carefully and neatly felted into a texture of wonderful uniformity. 

 The nature of the workmanship of these little birds will be seen to 

 extraordinary advantage, when compared with the moss baskets for 

 holding eggs or fruit, which we meet with in some of the shops in the 

 metropolis. The moss (usually Hypnci) upon the fruit and egg bas- 

 kets, is stuck on in a very rough way, bits of the branches projecting 

 all over, as if the maker possessed not the skill to render it smooth ; 

 but the bird's nest, when newly finished, and before it has been battered 

 by storms, or exposed to the wear and tear incident to the rearing 

 of a brood of nestlings, is almost as smooth on the outside (more so 

 internally), as if it had been felted together by a hat maker. The 

 wool of course is the material by which this is effected ; no other sub- 

 stance which the bird could select, being capable of matting so nicely 



