192 fringillidjl 
I NS ESS ORES. FRINQILLIBJE. 
CONIROSTRES. 
CHAFFINCH. 
SKELLY, SHELL-APPLE, PICK-A-TREE. 
Fringilla CCELEBS. 
PLATE XLIX. FIG. I. 
Few can have passed through life so unobservant as 
not to have seen, and in seeing to have admired, the nest 
of the Chaffinch. No one whose heart is touched by the 
beauties of Nature, can have examined this exquisite 
structure without uttering some exclamation of wonder 
and delight, and of comparing it, like the poet, with all 
that is most admirable in art and of man's invention. 
Amongst even the tiny architects of the feathered race 
there are few that can compete with the Chaffinch. Its 
nest is not only perfect in its inward arrangements, but 
is tastefully ornamented on the outside as well, with 
materials such as nature can alone supply. In its out¬ 
ward decoration some individuals employ much more of 
taste than others, but all seem to think it indispensable 
to deck the green walls of their dwellings with gems of 
white ; and when, in the neighbourhood of our towns, 
the beautiful white lichens which are used for that pur¬ 
pose are obscured and blackened by the smoke of our 
chimneys, they have recourse to something else. 
A nest of the Chaffinch, which was built in an old 
willow-tree in my father's garden, amidst the smoke of 
Newcastle, where no white lichens could be found, was 
