GREEN LINNET. 369 



ing the greater part of the year on the seeds of Gramineae, 

 and especially of the cultivated species, as well as on those of 

 the Compositae, Caryophyllese, and other plants ; to enable its 

 gizzard to triturate which, it swallows particles of various mi- 

 neral substances, among which I have frequently observed frag- 

 ments of coal. In spring and summer it also picks the buds 

 of various trees, and adds to its then less nutritive fare insects 

 and larvae of various kinds, with which chiefly it feeds its young. 

 Although timid, like all other small birds of the family, it is 

 not so shy as to render it diflicult for a person to approach it 

 within shooting distance. When wounded by a shot, it pecks 

 at the hand, and holds fast, although it has not strength enough 

 to inflict injury ; and when pursued on being winged, it seldom 

 screams in the apprehension of being caught. 



These are the principal circumstances relative to the habits 

 of the Greenfinch as observed in a cursory manner ; but we 

 have now to complete its history by watching it during the 

 breeding season. The males frequently engage in bloodless 

 combats, like those of the House Sparrow, at the period when 

 the instinct of pairing is in action, while the females conduct 

 themselves much in the same manner as those of the species 

 just named. Many authors have repeated the observation 

 made by Montagu, or possibly by some other person, that the 

 Greenfinch is very late in breeding ; but I am inclined to doubt 

 its accuracy, having seen the young abroad as early as those 

 of the ChaflRnch. The few notes which it utters during the 

 spring and summer can scarcely be called a song, although 

 some of them are full and mellow ; but they mingle with good 

 eflect with those of the Yellow Bunting and Sparrow ; al- 

 though the concert thus produced is not one of the most har- 

 monious. The nest is constructed in April, or sometimes 

 earlier, and is of good workmanship, being composed externally 

 of fibrous roots, slender twigs, and straws, internally of finer 

 materials of the same nature intermixed with moss, and lined 

 with hair of diflerent kinds. The eggs, from four to six in 

 number, are of a regular oval form, about eleven twelfths of an 

 inch in length, eight or a little more in breadth, of a bluish or 

 purplish -white, spotted with purplish-grey and blackish-brown, 



Bb 



