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bush or a large tuft of pampas grass is a good nesting place 
for the Chiff-chaff ; brambles, ivy, periwinkle and clematis for 
Nightingales and other warblers. 
Many birds become so much attached to a certain spot that 
when their nests arc destroyed they rebuild them in the same place 
five or six times in the season. A Goldcrested Wren’s nest was 
suspended from the end of a branch of red cedar on our lawn, so 
low that it was injured and the eggs knocked out by the hats of the 
croquet players, but the birds twice rebuilt it in vain, leaving the 
two injured nests hanging from the bottom of the new nest, and 
then built two more nests in succession the last of which was placed 
high up against the stem of a cedar of Lebanon. 
There is here a certain forked branch of a pear tree which has 
been chosen as a site for a Missel Thrush’s nest annually for at 
least thirty years, with only about three exceptions; a nest begun 
there last year, was soon forsaken and another built up on an 
apple tree a few yards off. Either the eggs or the young are 
invariably destroyed. 
The Hawfinch, which is rare about here, nests almost every year 
on a certain bough on an apple tree near Sparham. I myself have 
only seen these Hawfinches’ nests in three or four different years, 
but I am told that the nest is always on the same bough of the 
same tree, and that one, and frequently both of the old birds are 
usually shot from the nest, and the young or eggs destroyed. How 
is it that this particular branch should be so attractive to a bird so 
uncommon as the Hawfinch is here 1 In spite of this persecution 
there have been more Hawfinches noticed here during the last two 
years than in former years. Most birds, if their nests or eggs be 
destroyed, will immediately nest again generally in a safer spot 
unless the nest be taken clean away during their absence in which 
case they will usually build again in the same or an equally unsafe 
place. Some hen birds such as the Blackcap, if the nest be removed 
immediately after the young are flown, will in a few days build 
again, sometimes on the very same twig, leaving the cock bird to 
rear the first brood. 
Many birds will nest and lay ten, twelve, or more sets of eggs in 
succession if they are continually robbed, and some such as the 
Greenfinch and Kingdove may be found nesting from April to 
October. 
