THE LADIES MAGAZINE OP GARDENING. 
369 
cation of her nest than any other bird we know. Although she often 
builds among the thick branches of a bush, her favourite place is a cavity, 
or cleft in the trunk of a tree, where she contrives to conceal her nest 
with wonderful dexterity. The framework is formed of moss and other 
soft matters interwoven with fibres, and the inside is neatly lined with 
hair. The outside is carefully covered with cobwebs , and for a special 
purpose, which no other material within her reach would answer: that 
is, the more effectually to hide her workmanship, she sticks small pieces 
of lichen all over the cobwebs, which retain it firmly; and this is done so 
artfully that the exposed part of the nest cannot be distinguished from the 
general lichen-covered face of the trunk. Four or five eggs is the usual 
complement laid and hatched; and this very often twice in the summer. 
The young are fed entirely on the caterpillars which infest fruit trees; 
and consequently the chaffinch is an excellent friend to the gardener; 
although the latter is often its remorseless enemy, merely because he does 
not choose to be at the pains of keeping it off his seed-beds of cabbage, cauli¬ 
flower, turnip, and other plants belonging to the Brassicce family, for the 
chaffinch rarely destroys any other seeds. Gardeners are often blind to 
their own interest in these matters; destroying inferior animals instead of 
cherishing them; and thereby sustaining damage which might have been 
prevented by the exercise of a little mercy. 
The eggs of the chaffinch are of a dull, muddy colour, and much spotted 
with dark brown and black, and they are of a roundish form. The notes 
of this bird are cheerful, and particularly its early song, which, though 
short, is gay and lively. To common observers this song appears to be 
the same in every individual; but amateurs who keep chaffinches in 
cages, assert that some birds have a superior style of performance, which 
if they possess in purity renders them highly valuable. Among the 
short calls of different kinds the chink of the chaffinch is well known; 
and its continuous wet wet in rainy weather, is the same note which it 
uses when alarmed by any person approaching its nest. Chaffinches 
associate with buntings, linnets, greenfinches, &c., in 'winter; they being 
generally seen feeding and roosting together. 
The Bramble, or Mountain Finch (F . montifringilla ).—These birds, 
though living in numerous flocks on mountains or open wastes, are seldom 
seen about the habitations of man in the daytime; yet they constantly resort 
to the evergreen hedges or shrubs in gardens to pass the night; but as soon 
as day breaks in the morning, they are all off again to the moors to pass the 
day. We have seen troops of them going to, or returning from their roosting 
places, in the twilight of morning or evening; and we have known bat- 
folders capture great numbers of these handsome birds out of laurel-hedges, 
