78 
BIRDS OF LEICESTERSHIRE AND RUTLAND. 
the open country ; and in this -wall, about four feet from the ground, the nest was 
placed, at a distance of about two feet from the entrance. ]n a very short time 
the little boys discovered the nest, and, owing to their interference, the birds 
appear to have left the town.” (Recorded also in ‘Zool.,’ 1886, p. 336.) 
Section 0S(^INES-CURVIR0STRES. 
Family CERTHIID^. 
TREE-CREEPER. Certhia familiaris, Linnseus. 
Resident, and generally distributed. 
Harley well described its nidification thus : — “ It builds a beautiful nest, 
which it lodges in a chink of a forest tree, or between the axils of a large bough 
of the same, and sometimes it may be met with fixed betwixt two pieces of rough 
bark, especially of the elm. The edifice is large for so small a bird, being 
constructed chiefly of bents, shreds of green moss, dried grass, and other materials. 
The nest is lined profusely with feathers. Eggs, seven, and sometimes eight in 
number are laid.” Mr. Davenport, who finds the nest and eggs every year, writes: 
— “ I am inclined to imagine that two hen birds of this species occasionally lay 
in one nest ; I have found eggs varying so, three of one kind, four of another 
type, in the same nest.” In the Museum Donation-book, I find the following 
entry: — “Remains of nest of Creeper {Certhia familiaris), with ten eggs, found 
embedded in the solid trunk of an old elm-tree containing neaidy 150 feet 
of timber, together with the two slabs of wood, showing the cavity in which 
they were deposited without any opening to the exterior. — Presented by Mr. 
Gimson, Saw Mills, Welford Road, May 7th, 1852.” Mr. Ingram shewed me 
a nest containing young, in June, 1884, built behind the loose bark of a tree 
at Belvoir, in such a position as Harley notes. 
In Rutland. — Resident, and generally distributed. — Mr. Horn writes: — 
“ In 1886 we found a nest in Wardley Wood upon which the bird was sitting. 
The eggs were taken, and upon visiting the same tree a week later, the old bird 
was found dead upon the place where the nest had been.” 
Section OSCINES-CONIROSTllES. 
Family FRIN GILLIDtE. 
Sub-family FRINGILLIN^. 
GOI.DFINCH. Cardudis elegans (Stephens). 
“ Draw-water,” “ Proud Tailer, or Tailor,” “ Thistle-Finch.” 
Resident, but sparingly distributed. — Harley found it, in his day, in- 
creasingly rare, and wrote : — “ No small bird has suffered more from cultiva- 
