Mr. J. Wolley on the Breeding of the Smew . 69 
liar species, haunting gardens and often entering houses, where* 
instead of appearing alarmed, as do most other birds under 
similar circumstances, it preserves great coolness, hopping 
gravely from one piece of furniture to another, and carefully 
exploring the surrounding objects, its short squat figure 
putting one perpetually in mind of the Nuthatches ( Sitta ), 
to which group Certhiola must have some strong affinities. 
It generally keeps in pairs, and appears to breed from March 
to August, building its domed and often pensile nest, which 
has a small porch or pent-house roof over the entrance, in 
almost any kind of situation, but most generally at the extre¬ 
mity of a leafy bough. It sometimes seems to lay its eggs, 
which rarely appear to exceed three in number, before the nest 
is finished, rather to the discomfiture of the oologist, who de¬ 
lays inserting his finger into the structure while he sees one or 
both of the birds busy with a tuft of grass or cotton in their 
bills, until at last, losing patience, he examines the edifice to 
find the eggs already hatched. These are in shape elongated, 
and in colour white, blotched, particularly at the larger end, 
with rusty red. The nest is generally very untidy on the out¬ 
side ; it is composed of coarse grass or bents, with a good 
sprinkling of cotton without, and feathers in the inside. The 
birds are also fond of picking up rags and any sorts of odds and 
ends they can find about the houses, and adding them to the 
pile. 
“ I observed an instance in which two broods were reared 
from the same nest, with only an interval of ten days between 
the time the young left it and the laying of an egg/’—E. N. 
[To be continued.] 
VII.— On the Breeding of the Smew , Mergus albellus, L. 
By John Wolley, jun. 
The first year I was in Lapland, 1853, it was important for me 
to find out the native, that is, the Finnish, names for the birds 
of the country. Of the ducks generally I soon learned to un¬ 
derstand to which species each name referred; but there was 
one called Ungilo, concerning which I was for a long time in the 
