depend is wool, into which green moss, lichens of various
colours, and other substances are worked with wonderful
skill so as to produce a shapely mass of almost uniform
consistency« Outwardly, the texture is more or less studded
with such lichens as may best accord with the situation in
which it is placed, and films of the thin inner bark of certain
trees, especially the birch, are often interwoven; these external
additions, which artfully serve to protect the nest from
discovery, being further secured by spiders’ webs, or the
webs alone may be thickly laced across and around the whole.
Inside, the wool is still more closely felted, and covered with
a smooth lining of hairs, while to complete this masterpiece
of upholstery a few soft feathers are deftly arranged, often
so as to curl over the interior and more effectually conceal
its contents. This exquisite fabric seems, on the evidence of
more than one observer, to be the work of the hen-bird only,
and numerous instances have been remarked wherein, unable
to procure all her proper materials, she has supplied the want
by using the best substitutes available—paper torn to tatters
being often one of them—but the beauty of the nest is nearly
always spoilt thereby. The place chosen for it is as variable
as the substances of which it is composed, but the forked bough
of a bush or small tree is a very favourite situation, and it is
seldom built lower than five or six feet or higher than twelve
or fifteen from the ground. The eggs are usually five in
number, measuring from *85 to ’75 by from *59 to -55 in., a
dwarf being, however, not more than '68 by -48 in. They
are of a pale greenish-blue, generally suffused with reddish-
brown or purplish-buff, so that the prevalent tint is commonly
a warm one; on this many markings of dark crimson are
deposited, some in the form of well-defined spots, but others
almost invariably with blurred edges that are insensibly lost
on the ground-colour.
The Chaffinch is generally distributed over the British
Islands—those among the Outer Hebrides which are treeless,
Orkney and Shetland being perhaps the only places where it
does not yearly breed. Yet it visits even those barren wastes
occasionally, Mr. Elwes having seen one on a mountain in
Jura at the height of 2500 feet, while it occurs plentifully
every winter in Shetland. As a straggler it has been observed
by Herr H. C. Muller in the Fseroes. In Norway
and Sweden it extends in summer far beyond the Arctic
Circle, and, though becoming somewhat rare in those high
latitudes, Herr Collett, in June 1872, met with a pair on the
rocky island of Gfjaesvser, near the North Cape, which is
almost destitute of any arboreal vegetation. In the interior
of Finland it is far from uncommon, and it seems to be met
with throughout the forests of Russia so far northward as
Archangel. Pallas vouches for its appearance in Siberia,
but how far to the eastward it ranges is unknown, since his
successors in the ornithological exploration of that country
do not mention it. Mr. Blanford has obtained it in Belooch-
istan. It is a very common winter-visitant to Palestine, and
breeds abundantly in the highest parts of the Lebanon. Mr.
Wyatt obtained a specimen in the Sinaitic peninsula, and it
occurs in winter in Egypt, but is rarely seen further south
than Cairo, and, according to Capt. Shelley, probably does
not go beyond the First Cataract of the Nile. It is a common
winter-bird in the Levant, generally, and Col. Drummond-
Hay believes that it breeds in Crete.' In North-west Africa
it is very rare, and only a few examples have been observed
in Algeria, where the closely-allied but quite distinct Fringilla
spodiogenia takes its place, while in Madeira, the Azores and
Canaries it is represented by two other species, F. tintillon
and F. teydea. Almost everywhere throughout Europe it is
as common a bird as it is with us, and is generally more or
less migratory in its habits, but in a locality so far south as
the Balearic Islands it is said to be resident.
The adult male in summer has the bill of a deep bluish
lead-colour, inclining to pink at the base of the lower mandible
: the irides hazel: the feathers of the forehead black;
top of the head and nape dark bluish-grey, the latter bounded
by a narrow half-collar of dark oil-green; upper part of the
back dull chestnut, changing just above the rump to oil-green,
which continues over the upper tail-coverts; scapulars and
least wing-coverts dark bluish-grey, the next tier of wing-
VOL. II. l