i86 ENGLISH BIRD LIFE 



being the most notable bird of English ^voods and 

 park lands. " Nothing I had read or could find in 

 the treatises on British ornithology," writes 

 Burroughs, in his Impressions of some English 

 Birds, " had given me any inkling of which was the 

 most abundant and vociferous English song-bird. 

 Throughout the month of May, and probably 

 during all the spring months, the Chaffinch makes 

 two-thirds of the music that ordinarily greets the 

 ear as one walks or drives about the country. In 

 both England and Scotland in my walks up to the 

 time of my departure, the last of July, I seemed to 

 see three Chaffinches to one of any other species of 

 bird. The male is the prettiest of British song- 

 birds, with its soft, blue-grey back, barred wings 

 and pink breast and sides. The Scotch call him 

 the ' Shilfa.' At Alloway there was a Shilfa for 

 everv tree, and its hurried and incessant notes met 

 and intersected each other from all directions every 

 moment of the dav like wavelets on a summer pool. 

 So many birds and each one so persistent and 

 vociferous accounts for their part in the choir. The 

 song is as loud as that of our orchard starling, and 

 even more animated. It begins with a rapid wren- 

 like trill, which quickly becomes a sharp jingle, 

 then slides into a warble, and ends with an abrupt 

 flourish. I have never heard a song which began 

 so liltingly and ended with such c[uick, abrupt 

 emphasis. The last note often sounds like ' whittier ' 

 uttered with great sharpness; . . . the song, on the 

 whole, is a pleasing one, and very characteristic, 

 so rapid, incessant and loud." 



Although the British observer may not fall in 



