MOUNTAIN LINNET. 
Ill 
notes of a pair of Twites, 1 searched among some tall shrubs^ 
and found three newly-lledged young ones, and soon afterwards 
a nest with one addled egg, near the top of an elder, about 
nine feet from the gi’ound. The nest was very large and 
clumsily made, and altogether different in a}>pearance from 
the neat little structures one finds in walls or upon the hill- 
sides. Those in the latter situations usually have very little 
beneath the lining, sometimes nothing at all ; but in this one 
there was a mass, about three inches and a half in thickness, of 
coarse roots and pieces of dried brittle elder twigs, entirely filling 
the fork of the branch. The outer portion of the nest itself was 
composed of coarse roots and stalks of plants, and next to this 
was a layer of very fine roots ; then came a layer of curved 
white duck’s feathers ; and lastly, a thick layer of wool, inter- 
mixed with the hair of cows and ponies. The straggling 
appearance of the nest was partly due to the very unusual 
addition of large quill feathers about the upper edge, the longest 
measuring eight inches in length. The inside diameter of the 
nest was about three inches. 
In the same summer a cottager’s boy found a nest of six 
young Twites among the heather, in a slight hollow which the 
heavy showers of the previous night had partly filled with 
water. Seeing that the young birds were nearly dead, he 
carried them home, and, by the help of a warm fire and plenty 
of wool, succeeded so far in restoring four of them that they 
were very soon able to take food. Two days later, observing 
the parent birds still in the neighbourhood, he replaced the 
nest and its contents, the ground having now become dry, and 
almost immediately afterwards he saw them carrying food to 
the nestlings. Several days after that, fearing that the birds 
would be discovered by other boys, and thinking that they were 
sufficiently strong to do without their parents’ care, he once 
more took them home and fed them, but, to his surprise, the 
old birds, probably attracted by the cries of the young, very 
soon discovered them, and at once resumed charge of them, 
feeding them diligently, and passing in and out through the 
