Birds of Leicestershire 115 



of the new sand pit opened behind the old Burbage Toll 

 Gate at the entrance to the Sapcote Road. Some of you 

 may think the swift should be included, but this bird 

 belongs to another family, his anatomy showing him to 

 be no swallow. The family, ' Certhiidce ' is represented 

 by only one member, the tree creeper, a pretty and unob- 

 trusive little bird, not very common, and I expect fre- 

 quently overlooked. He is often found in winter in 

 company with a party of titmice, as they go flitting about 

 the country from tree to tree in search of food. His 

 method of doing this is to begin low down on a tree and 

 run or creep up it till he gets towards the top of the 

 trunk, and then fly to another and repeat the perform- 

 ance. He is a resident. The finches, ' Fringillidce,' 

 are more numerous. Of these we have the goldfinch, 

 siskin (at least I think I may say he very occasionally 

 occurs but it is very seldom),* greenfinch, hawfinch, 

 another rather rare finch, but I have known him nest 

 with us, and he certainly spends the summer in the grove 

 and gardens at Burbage Rectory, where my attention was 

 first called to the fact by finding the stones of the wild 

 cherries neatly split in two under the trees. He is a 

 very shy bird indeed, and though the largest of our 

 finches, seldom seen. House sparrow, tree sparrow ; 

 Mr. Browne says sparingly distributed, but it is common 

 in this district, though no doubt confounded by the great 

 majority of people with the house sparrow, from which 

 it differs in having a chestnut or maroon-coloured crown 

 to its head, instead of an ash grey one, and having a white 

 collar with a black spot on its cheek. He is much more 

 a bird of the open country, and is never seen in towns 

 or villages except in winter, when hard pressed for food. 

 The chaffinch, bramble finch (a scarce winter visitor), 

 linnet, lesser red poll, mealy redpoll (Mr. Browne has no 

 record of this bird, but I saw two which had been caught 

 at Shenton last winter, 1914), twite or mountain linnet 

 (but I have only one record of this, on the authority of 

 Puffer, the taxidermist, who told me some boys took one 

 to him in the autumn of 1889, and there is no other record 

 *I have two records since this paper was written. 



