BIED-NESTING IN WOODS AND HEDGEROWS. 
The Hawfinch, or grasbeak, is becoming a rare bird in this 
country, being shot down by collectors for stuffing wherever 
it is seen, and naturalists have expressed great doubts of its 
breeding in this island. It has, however, been not unfrequently 
found of late years in the hornbeam pollards of Epping Forest, 
and also in Lord Clifden’s grounds at Boehampton, where two 
nests were seen in 1835. The nest was built at the extremity 
of the branch of a horse-chestnut tree, near the lodge, and was 
composed chiefly of the twigs of privet and birch, and lined 
with hair and fine grass; the nest is shallow, and the twigs 
loosely put together. 
The eggs (fig. 2) are three to five, of an ashy-grey colour, tinged 
with green, and marked with brown spots and bluish-black lines. 
The nest of the Bullfinch is found in similar localities, but 
later in the season; about the beginning of May it begins 
to build its nest, being a loosely-formed fabric of dry twigs, 
placed at no great height on the fork of a spruce-fir tree, or 
hawthorn-bush, lining it with fibrous roots of small plants. 
It is a denizen of the woods, and rarely found where roots 
are absent, for it lives the greater part of the year in 
thickets and hedges, only betaking itself to the fields in 
search of seeds, and to the gardens in search of the seeds of 
flowers and fruits. The eggs (fig. 4), four or five in number, 
are of a broadish oval form, of bluish or purplish- white colour, 
spotted and streaked with purplish grey and reddish brown, 
about three-quarters of an inch long and a little over half an 
inch in greatest width. The bird is remarkable for its undu- 
lating flight, occasionally protracted, as it flits along from the 
hedges and roads ; it is an active, lively bird. 
The Siskin, while it is found among us in considerable 
numbers, does not seem to breed south of the Tweed ; at least 
none of our naturalists have recorded more than an occasional 
pair. Macgillivray and his correspondents were more fortu- 
nate; Mr. Weir, of Boghead, having observed the small nest 
of a pair built in the fork of a spruce fir. It was built on a 
branch, about four feet and a half from the ground, one side 
resting against the stem, and one of the best concealed nests 
he had seen. The nest is cup-shaped, with walls an inch and 
a half thick, and the interior of the nest a,n inch and a quarter 
in diameter, formed, externally, of hypna moss, held together 
by hairs and fibrous roots interwoven; the edges interlaced 
with grass and root fibre ; the lining, half an inch thick, formed 
of seed-down and hairs densely matted together. 
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