31- BIRDS OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE. 



which, however, is very often deserted, if not sufficiently 

 advanced to accompany the parents when they migrate 

 about the middle of October. 



It seems a thousand pities that such eminently useful 

 birds shoidd be destroyed for the ornamentation (f) of ladies' 

 hats and bonnets, to which they are affixed in their un- 

 sophisticated natural tints, or dyed almost past recognition 

 in every colour of the rainbow. So terrible is the persecu- 

 tion to which they have been subjected on this account, 

 more particularly on the Continent, that their numbers of 

 late years have sensibly diminished, to the manifest delight 

 of the gnats and objectionable insects of that kind. 



It is unquestionable that a nestful of j'oung house 

 martins make a considerable mess on the ground under- 

 neath their birth-place, hence, some people prevent the 

 birds from building on their premises; but a board affixed 

 to the wall, some little distance below the nest, would 

 entirely obviate the trilling inconvenience. 



THE FINCHES. 



We now come to a rather nondescri})t familj^, made up 

 of, at least, half-a-dozen distinct ones, while its genera are 

 multipied in the most diffuse and perplexing manner ; 

 however, thus it has been decreed by zoological authorities, 

 and thus, for the present, we are constrained to leave it. 



Fami ly — Fnngillid<^. 



Genus — 1. Passer. P. domcsticus. House Sparrow. 



F. vioutaiius. Tree Sjmrrow. 



2. Coccothraustes. C. vti/gaj-is. Hawfinch. 



3. Ligurinus. L. cJiloris. Greenfinch. 



4. Frifigilia. F. ca'hbs. Chaffinch. 



F. montifrin- 



gilla. Brambling. 



