268 
HAWFINCH. 
only at uncertain and unequal intervals ; it has, 
however, been lately ascertained to breed in 
some parts of the south, but seems extremely 
local, while in other parts it appears occasionally, 
and generally in the winter and spring. For the 
notice of the permanent residence and nidification 
of this bird in England, we are indebted to Henry 
Doubleday, Esq. who communicated his observa- 
tions made in the vicinity of Epping Forest, to the 
Magazine of Zoology and Botany.* This gentle- 
man has most obligingly furnished our own col- 
lection with specimens of the birds, with the nest 
and eggs procured in the same neighbourhood, 
and we must now resort to this source for infor- 
mation, having never had the satisfaction of seeing 
the bird alive, or in its natural localities. Mr 
Doubleday considers that their extreme shyness 
has hitherto kept us in ignorance of their habits. 
Their principal food in Epping Forest is the 
seeds of the hornbeam, (carpinus betulus ,) also 
the kernels of haws, plumb stones, laurel berries, 
&c. and in summer green peas, from the gardens 
in the vicinity of the forest. The situation of 
the nest is various, but it is most commonly 
placed in an old scrubby white thorn bush, 
often in a very exposed situation. They also 
frequently build on the horizontal arms of large 
oaks, the heads of pollard hornbeams, in hollies, 
and occasionally on fir trees in plantations, the 
elevation of the nest varying from five to twenty- 
five, or thirty feet. It is composed of dead twigs 
* Vol. i. p. 148. 
