hither as a cage-bird, and the localities in which it is said to have
been procured are such as to raise a justifiable suspicion that
on each and every occasion the victim was an escaped captive.
The food of this species seems to consist of the seeds and
buds of many sorts of trees, but particulars on this point are
still wanting. Except when under the stress of winter-weather,
it invariably inhabits pine-forests, and hence we may perhaps
presume that its chief sustenance is obtained from conifers.
In summer however its diet appears to be occasionally varied
by insects. Schinz (Nester und Eier, pt. ii. p. 100, Taf. 3 5 ,
15,16) described and figured two of its eggs, sent him by
Gravenhorst from Breslau, where, as appears from Thiene-
mann, they were laid in captivity. The writer last named
also figured the egg correctly and said (Fortpfl. ges. Yog. tab.
xxxvi. fig. 1, p. 418) that he had never compared but five
specimens thereof, which were from Labrador and Lapland—
the latter possibly obtained by Zetterstedt, who, so far as is
yet known, must be deemed the earliest discoverer of the
mode of breeding of this species, having met with several of
its nests near Juckasjarvi, at the end of June 1821 (Besa
genom Swer. och Norrig. Lappmarker, i. p. 243). Nothing
however can be said to have been positively known by Englishmen
on the subject until 1855, when Whlley, after two years
of ineffectual search, succeeded in obtaining the nests and
of the Pine-Grosbeak. The Editor well recollects these
treasures being for the first time brought to his late friend by
the trusty and intelligent Lapp who had been especially employed
to look for them and had at last gained the reward
his efforts deserved.*
* The story, told in 1808 by the elder Naumann (Naturg. Land- nnd Wasser-
Vogel nordl. Deutschl. Beitr. iii. pp. 18, 19) of his having observed this species,
twenty-two years before, breeding in his own coppice at Ziebigk in Anhalt, is
evidently fabulous. He first described the incident in 1797 (op.'tit. i. pp. 6 1 ,
62) as referring to a Crossbill, which from the particulars he gives is just as unlikely.
In 1824 his son (Naturg. Vog. Deutschl. iv. p. 416) not unnaturally
stuck to his father’s later opinion, but without corroborating it by any further
evidence of weight. Indeed he almost places his testimony out of court, since in
the same page he misquotes Bernhard Meyer’s description (Vog. Liv- und Esthl
p. 77) of the nest and eggs of the Greenfinch as those of the present bird referring
thereto in proof of his father’s accurate observation ! Particulars of Wolley’s
Thé nest is generally placed some six feet or more from
the ground in a young fir, and rests on the horizontal
branches near to or touching the bole. It has an unmistakable
likeness to that of the Bullfinch, and is a beautifully
neat structure, “ made externally of an extremely light network
of thin trailing twigs laced into each other; some of
which are more than two feet in length.” This fabric “ is
suddenly changed into a compact bedding of bare roots,
mixed with a few sprigs of hair-lichen, which form together
almost a separate nest inside the outer network.” Occasionally
the long stems of creeping plants are used instead of
twigs for the outworks, and Wolley saw one nest composed of
the vagrant stalks of the delicate Linncea, while dry grass sometimes
almost exclusively replaces the roots of the ordinary lining.
But, however different the materials, the style of architecture
never varies and whoever has seen a Bullfinch’s nest can
form a very just idea of that of the Pine-Grosbeak—the latter
however, as is natural, being considerably larger. The same
may be said of the eggs, which are commonly four in number,
and, measuring from 1/1 to *91 by from *74 to ‘67 in., may
be described as exaggerated Bullfinches’, being of a deep
greenish-blue, speckled, spotted or blotched with purplish-
grey or dark brownish-purple. The markings, especially of
the former colour, are seldom well defined and often much suffused,
in which case a brownish tint is imparted to the whole
shell, and the darker colour is often spread in the form of
large irregular blotches ; but there are eggs in which these
are remarkably well defined.
The Pine-Grosbeak inhabits the conifer-zone of the northern
parts of both the Old and the New World, seeking, we
may presume, in either Region a lower latitude during winter.
That in Europe it does so is evident, for towards the southern
extremity of the Scandinavian peninsula it appears yearly, and
« sometimes in considerable numbers. Nevertheless it is only
induced by very severe weather to cross to Denmark, and but
rediscovery were given, in 1856, l)y Mr. Hewitsou wiio also figured the eggs (Eggs
Br. B. Ed. 2, i. p. 210* pi. liii.*), and later in still greater detail by Mr.
Dresser in bis admirable work.