CHAFFINCH. 
193 
stuck over outside with small bits of white paper. Mr. 
Rennie says that, in the neighbourhood of the cotton 
factories at Catrine, in Ayrshire, he has seen many Chaf¬ 
finches' nests thus decked with small tufts of cotton 
wool. 
The Chaffinch builds its nest in many different situa¬ 
tions, preferring old moss-grown apple- or crab-trees, and 
white thorn bushes. There is, however, scarcely a low 
tree upon the branches of which the nest may not be 
sometimes found, occasionally upon the flat bough of 
a spruce-fir, in hollies, laurels, and furze-bushes, and 
often in hedges. I have found one on the top of a 
dead stake fence. The nest is small in comparison 
with that of most other birds, being usually only an 
inch and three-fourths in diameter inside; it is com¬ 
posed chiefly of moss, so worked and matted together 
with wool, that it is no easy matter to pull it into 
pieces as small as those of which it was first formed; 
inside of this is a very thick lining of dry grass, wool, 
feathers, thistle-down, and hair, in succession. 
The eggs are four or five in number, and rarely differ 
much from the accompanying figure. I have taken some 
of a light blue, blotched with reddish colouring, and much 
like those of the bullfinch. 
o 
