60 WILD LI1-I-: IN CHINA. 



had just selected the site of her nest one daj- as I was going 

 past, and as it was not more than twelve or fifteen feet from the 

 ground, and on a quite conspicuous branch, I tooU the precau- 

 tion to pretend not to have seen anything, there being natives 

 passing along of whom some one or other, would have thought 

 it the right and propei* thing to pull off his stray-- sandal and 

 throw at the little builder. Apparently she \\'as unnoticed, 

 for her building went on till it was finished, and I hope her 

 brood was safely brought up. The other was in private 

 grounds, and being quite 30 ft. from the soil, and on a fairlj- 

 slender branch, was safe from all but winged foes. Some maraud- 

 ing magpie, some egg-stealing rook, might have come along to 

 ravish the little home, but I fancy that the combined attack of 

 such a pair of beaks as the defenders could bring to bear must 

 have proved a sufficient deterrent for I never once saw the 

 parent birds in chase of any other, and that is one of the best 

 signs of lack of plunderous intent. Madame did not like 

 inspection very much at first, though it was done at a dist- 

 ance of perhaps a hundred feet. Perhaps she felt the eyes 

 of the binocular on her, and didn't like being watched. She 

 would crane her neck well up above the side of the nest to 

 see what the intruder was doing, and whether his move- 

 ments, quiet as they were, meant mischief or not. After a 

 few days, however, she seemed to have made up her mind 

 that it was all right, that there was no deadliness in the 

 tubes levelled at her, and so she was content to remain quiet, 

 and it was possible to imagine that she rather liked the daily 

 visit during her long incubation. It made a little change for 

 her. Anyhow, her brood were hatched without harm, and 

 are now amongst the additions to the rapidly growing birds' 

 census since the beginning of May, this year. 



It might have been mentioned that the ugly classical 

 name of the hawfinches is derived from "coccos" a berry, and 

 "thrauo", to break. It is thus self-explanatory. The bill of 

 the sparrow is of the same hawfinch type, as are those of the 

 bullfinch and greenfinch, though theirs are less heavy. The 

 little ricebird iPacMa oryzivora) belongstothefamily. Another 

 common member is the brambling f Fiin<>illa iu(>iifefriii<iilla), 

 but that, unlike the hawfinch we have been considering, is a 

 migrant. It goes north during the spring and returns again in 

 autumn. The canary we have with us ahvays. without per- 

 haps remembering that he too is a member of the wide-spread- 

 ing family of the finches. So with the cross-bills, those 

 peculiarly adapted birds which live on the seeds in fir-cones. 

 They are well known in Eastern Asia. The cross-bill gave 

 rise to the legend which ''accounts for" it. It was at the time 

 of the Crucifixion that the catastrophe occurred. Before that 

 the cross-bill was merely a grosbeak of the ordinary type. 



