9 8 NATURE NOTES 
is shaped more like a parrot than one of our English finches. I hope they have 
come to stay. 
The Cedars, Lee, S.E. Jos. F. Green. 
It is a mistake to suppose that these birds are “ harbingers of hard weather.” 
They breed in this neighbourhood annually, and are terribly destructive to green 
peas in the pods. A pair of old ones and four or five young ones after leaving 
the nest are frequently seen and heard uttering a squeaky note as they follow the 
parent birds, often high in the air, passing from place to place. I have sometimes 
felt compelled to catch them or lose my crops of peas, and this is easily done by 
baiting with green peas shelled out. I have kept them in cages when caught. 
Hawfinches visit my orchard every winter for damson stones, which they split open 
and take the kernels. I have also seen hundreds of haw-stones cracked by them 
and lying under trees, in Warwickshire, at Wooton Wawen. They are also 
partial to hazel nuts and hunt for fallen fruits in woods among the leaves. I saw 
three go into a wood near, a few days ago. They also feed, as do bullfinches, on 
the seeds of the common maple and ash in winter. The nest of the hawfinch is 
usually, if not always, built in old tall apple trees, and is loose and rough to look 
at from the ground. I have only met with one, but have heard of several being 
taken in the locality. 
The IVreri s Nest, Aslwood, Rcdditch. James Hiam. 
Thrush’s Nost on Ground. — Mrs. Ticehurst, Hon. Sec. Petersfield 
Branch, sends the photograph, here reproduced, taken by her husband on account 
of the unusual situation of the nest, viz., under a plant of Brussels sprouts. 
