NEW SPECIES OF GROUSE. 337 
dingy white, with red spots, and vary in number from 
nine to eleven. 
“ These birds are not so common as some of the others. 
For a short time during early spring, they associate in 
that bounds our gardens, &c. ; in all which places, and without 
the least consideration of site or season, it will collect a great mass 
of straws and hay, and gather a profusion of feathers from the 
poultry yard, to line its nest. This cradle for its young, whether 
under our tiles in March or in July, when the parent bird is 
panting in the common heat of the atmosphere, has the same 
provisions made to afford warmth to the brood ; yet this is a bird 
that is little affected by any of the extremes of our climate. The 
wood pigeon and the jay, though they erect their fabrics on the 
tall underwood in the open air, will construct them so slightly, 
and with such a scanty provision of materials, that they seem 
scarcely adequate to support their broods; and even their eggs 
may almost be seen through the loosely connected materials ; but 
the goldfinch, that inimitable spinner, the Arachne of the grove, 
forms its cradle of fine mosses and lichens, collected from the apple 
or the pear tree, compact as a felt, lining it with the down of 
thistles besides, till it is as warm as any texture of the kind can be, 
and it becomes a model for beautiful construction. The golden- 
crested wren, a minute creature, perfectly unmindful of any 
severity in our winter, and which hatches its young in June, the 
warmer portion of our year, yet builds its nest with the utmost 
attention to warmth; and, interweaving small branches of moss 
with the web of the spider, forms a closely compacted texture, 
nearly an inch in thickness, lining it with such a profusion of 
feathers, that, sinking deep into this downy accumulation, it seems 
almost lost itself when sitting, and the young, when hatched, 
appear stifled with the warmth of their bedding, and the heat of 
their apartment ; while the whitethroat, the blackcap, and others, 
which will hatch their young nearly at the same period, or in July, 
will require nothing of the kind. A few loose bents and goose 
grass, rudely entwined with perhaps the luxury of some scattered 
hairs, are perfectly sufficient for all the wants of these ; yet they 
are birds that live only in genial temperatures, feel nothing of the 
icy gales that are natural to our pretty indigenous artists, but flit 
from sun to sun, and, we might suppose, would require much 
warmth in our climate during the season of incubation ; but it is 
not so. The greenfinch places its nest in the hedge, with little 
regard to concealment ; its fabric is slovenly and rude, and the 
materials of the coarsest kinds ; while the chaffinch, just above it 
in the elm, hides its nest with cautious care, and moulds it with 
the utmost attention to order, neatness, and form. One bird must 
have a hole in the ground ; to another, a crevice in the wall, or a 
chink in a tree, is indispensable. The bullfinch requires fine roots 
VOL. IV. Y 
