1884.] THE HAWFINCH, OB GROSBEAK. 179 



on in full chorus until dayliglit is fairly in ; the birds then drop off one 

 by one, and are seen alighting in all directions for the early womi 

 Tlie Shilfas, Willow-warblers, and others then take up the singing, 

 and with occasional help from the Blackbirds and Thrushes, carry it 

 on throughout the day. When the twilight comes on, the birds once 

 more join together and sing with great spirit, the IMavis generally 

 being the last to stop. The birds begin in February, and sing on to the 

 end of June ; in some places it may be a little later, but by the second 

 week of July it is quite over. It is singular indeed that in the full 

 glory of summer when the trees seem to invite us to their cooling 

 shade, this music should cease ; but so it is, for the only indication 

 you get of the presence of birds is seeing them flitting noiselessly 

 about from tree to tree, and one experiences a feeling of sadness when 

 walking through the woods, and instead of every tree and shrub being 

 vocal with the music of birds, we fiud a strange silence reigning 

 over all. E. Baxter. 



THE HAWFINCH, OB GROSBEAK 

 ,VEX Gilbert White went astray in his account of the 

 Hawfinch, or Grosbeak, as he preferred to call it. It was 

 '^^ ' rarely seen in England,' he said, ' and only in winter.' 

 After finding such a man mistaken, the errors of new naturalists, who 

 have imagined the Ijird to be a winter visitor only, need not surprise 

 us. The fact is well established that the Hawfinch is not uncommon 

 and that it is little known, and rarely seen, only on account of its 

 extremely shy and retired habits. It breeds anywhere bet%veen the 

 Tyne and the Tamar, a few counties only excepted, perhaps. 



At Cobham, in Kent, a few miles from London, fifty nests have 

 been observed. It has been seen in every county in England, except 

 Westmoreland. In all the Home Counties it is plentiful ; in Epping 

 Forest particularly it abounds. Unlike some other shy birds, whose 

 numbers have diminished since our modern agricultural improve- 

 ments, the number of Hawfinches has become greater. 



I know this bird quite well, from having resided in a Home 

 County, where some years back I often endeavoured in vain to stalk 

 the Hawfinch, perched on the top of a tree — a place of vantage from 

 which it is in the habit of taking a sharp look-out ; but the shy bird 

 invariably flew off before I could get within shot. ]\Ir. Doubleday, 

 the best authority on this particular bird, remarked in a paper in the 

 first volume of ' The Magazine of Zoology and Botany,' as long ago 

 as in 1837, that the shyness of the Hawfinch exceeded that of almost 

 any other land bird. He had watched the bird for years, and gave an 

 excellent account of it in the journal before named. The late Pro- 

 fessor Bell, when occupying Gilbert White's house at Selborne, saw 



