332 FRINGILLA CCELEBS. 



in the vicinity of houses, searching for food by the hedges, in 

 the orchards, gardens, farm-yards, and fields. As the winter 

 approaches, they collect into loose flocks, and associate with 

 Green Grosbeaks, Yellow Buntings, Sparrows, and other 

 species of this order, frequenting the stubble fields and farm- 

 yards, and frequently settling on the roads to search among 

 horse-dung for undigested seeds. Their food at this season 

 consists of seeds of various kinds, but especially oats and 

 wheat, to aid the disgestion of which they swallow small 

 rounded smooth grains of gravel, generally of a blackish colour. 

 Some of these seeds are often found in the oesophagus, which, 

 as in all the other birds of this family, seems to answer the 

 puq30se of a recipient, although it has no very distinct enlarge- 

 ment or crop. 



Their flight, which is rapid, and on occasion protracted, is 

 undulated, being performed by quickly repeated flaps, with 

 short intervals of cessation. They alight abruptly, move on 

 the ground by very short leaps, and when alarmed perch on 

 trees or bushes. When not at rest the males usually raise the 

 feathers of the forehead somewhat in the manner of the Field 

 Lark. They are among the most familiar of our birds, being 

 nearly as little distrustful of man as the Sparrow. Towards 

 the end of March the flocks break up, and in April preparations 

 are made for breeding. 



The pairing takes place without much display of animosity 

 among the males, who at this season are frequently heard re- 

 peating their ordinary note, from two to six, generally four, 

 times, in rapid succession, tweet^ ticeet^ tweet — tweet. At other 

 periods it is generally a single tweet, rather deep and mellow. 

 Its song is short, modulated, mellow, and for a time pleasant 

 to the listener, although ajDt to become disagreeable from its 

 being so frequently repeated without the least variation. Pre- 

 vious to the arrival of the migratory warblers, the Chaffinch, 

 the Yellow Bunting, and the Robin, are the species with whose 

 song we are everywhere assailed ; but as the season advances, 

 their notes become in a great measure lost by being blended 

 with those of more pleasing performers. The people in the 

 south of Scotland most unpoetically imagine the song of the 



