CHAPTER XXXIX 



THE BRAMBLING 



If the chaffinch be a living and vivid chromo-lithograph, the 

 brambling is a dull, muddy-coloured example of the art, as 

 you may see if you choose a grey day in autumn, and steal 

 stealthily among the new-laid marshes near the roar of the 

 sea. I say stealthily, because the brambling is one of the 

 most alert birds to scent danger, and so is most careful of a 

 useless carcase, like many another wastrel. As you approach 

 the new-laid wheat-piece the many-sounding finches and 

 buntings will be heard chattering, and the yellow loam will 

 be covered with flocks of white, red, green, yellow, and brown, 

 living flocks that seem to move swiftly over the face of the 

 sea-marsh, regardless of the gunner lurking on the hollowed 

 sea-dunes. If you watch them diligently with your glass, 

 you will see the brambling finches, quick of movement, much 

 resembling the chaffinch — cock resembling cock, and hen 

 spinx resembling hen brambling. There, among the green- 

 finches, linnets, yellow buntings, and land-buntings, you 

 will see them feeding and moving restlessly about, and 

 should you crack a rotten stick with your feet, up fly the 

 cock bramblings, swift of wing, and the cloud of the finch 

 tribe gleams like a rainbow in the sun as they fly off to a 

 many-coloured fallow marsh, where the soil is filled with 

 charlock seed, or " garlock " as the fenmen call it. Indeed, 

 the charlock is the pest consecrate to the brambling finch, 

 and since the charlock loves the marshes by the roaring sea, 

 there you will find him from October to the last week in 

 April, when, lo ! he goeth whence he came, and the ripe 

 crop of charlock blows unseen for him. 



