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ALLEN’S NATURALIST’S LIBRARY. 
the development of the towns and the invasion of the bird- 
catcher into its favourite haunts. The gradual cultivation of 
waste-lands, with their accompanying plenitude of thistles, has 
doubtless likewise had something to do with the disappearance 
of the Goldfinch. An old bird-catcher has told us that in 
his youth he once caught twelve dozen Goldfinches in a single 
morning, placing his nets behind a hedge which then existed on 
the present site of the Great Western Railway at Paddington ; 
and we can remember when the Goldfinch was common in 
Berkshire, and flocks of young birds were to be found in 
autumn in places where a Goldfinch has probably not been 
seen for the last twenty years. In winter it frequents the 
alder-trees in company with Redpolls and Siskins, and is often 
to be seen on the thistles, the seeds of which form a staple 
article of its food. It nests in fruit-trees, and in many places in 
evergreen shrubs, away from habitations, but the nest is often 
built in the slender branches of a beech or oak tree in parks 
and woodlands. 
Nest. — Cup-shaped and beautifully made ; composed of moss 
and lichens distributed externally ; lined with horse-hair and 
downy feathers. 
Eggs. — Four or five in number, of the same type as those of 
the Greenfinch, but much smaller; ground-colour creamy blue 
or bluish white, with grey underlying markings, and spotted or 
lined with reddish brown. The markings vary greatly in 
strength and intensity, and some eggs are practically without 
spots of any kind. Axis, 07 inch ; diam., 0-5. Mr. Seebohm 
points out that the eggs of the Goldfinch cannot be distin- 
guished from those of the Serin or Siskin, and can only be 
told from those of the Linnet and Greenfinch by their smaller 
size. The lighter ground-colour distinguishes them from the 
eggs of the Lesser Redpoll. (Plate XXIX., Fig. 5.) 
THE SISKINS. GENUS CHRYSOMITRIS. 
Chrysomitris, Boie, Isis, 1822, p. 322. 
Type, C. spinus (Linn.). 
Possessing a bill of similar shape to that of the Goldfinches, 
attenuated and pointed, the Siskins differ from the latter birds 
