CHAPTER XXXIII 



THE HA W FINCH OR COBBLE-BIRD * 



When the yellow leaves have dropped like great pale dead 

 butterflies through the low grey skies of autumn, and the 

 canker-riddled cauliflowers and budding sprouts are eaten 

 up, and the millman's garden is a slippery morass of de- 

 caying vegetation, and dripping branches lie naked to the 

 sky, the hawfinch deigns to visit the Broad district at rare 

 intervals, and he is generally to be found in a deserted 

 garden beneath a bare-branched, moss-stained bullace-tree, 

 for he loves to crack the hard black cobbles with his strong 

 bill as dearly as any schoolboy. 



Mere glimpses of this handsome bird against a grey back- 

 ground is all we get in the Broadland, brief glances scarce 

 worth recording, and the proud-looking bird with the curly 

 feather is gone, so we know little of him and his ways. 



* I have seen but one living specimen of this bird in Norfolk, though two 

 stuffed birds I know of — one shot at Reedham in 1890, and one at Hickling, 

 1891 — each one with bullace seeds in their mouth. In Surrey I have, as a 

 schoolboy, frequently found the hawfinch's nest. 



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