CHAFFINCH 135 



country, and a bird that attaches itself to the neighbourhood of 

 houses, an inhabitant of gardens and orchards, and a resident 

 throughout the year. He is a pretty bird, and, if not a brilliant 

 songster, is at all events a very vigorous one ; his lively, ringing 

 lyric, being short and composed of notes invariably repeated in the 

 same order, is capable of being remembered longer and more 

 vividly reproduced in the mind than any other song. Sitting by 

 the fireside in January, you can mentally hear the song of the 

 chaffinch ; but the brain is incapable of registering the more 

 copious and varied bird-music in the same perfect way — the music, 

 for instance, of the skylark and thrush and garden-warbler. It is 

 not strange that, when Browning wished to be back in England in 

 April, he thought of the spring song of the chaffinch, before that 

 of any other species. 



to be in England 



Now that April's there ; 



And whoever wakes in England 



Sees, some morning, unaware, 



That the lowest boughs of the brushwood sheaf 



Eound the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf, 



While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough 



In England now 1 



The chaffinch makes the most of his song. He appears, indeed, 

 very much in earnest in whatever he does, his character in this 

 respect offering a strong contrast to that of the goldfinch, siskin, 

 and various other melodists. They sing at all times, anywhere 

 and anyhow. With the chaffinch, singing is a business just as 

 Important as any other — feeding, fighting, pairing, and building. 

 He flies to a tree, and deliberately takes his stand, often on the 

 most commanding twig, and there delivers his few notes with the 

 utmost energy, and so rapidly that they almost run into each other, 

 ending with a fine flourish. At regular intervals of a few seconds 

 the performance is repeated, the bird standing erect and motionless 

 all the time ; until, having given the fullest and most complete 

 expression to his feelings, he flies away, to engage elsewhere in 

 some task of another kind. 



It is a loud song and a joyous sound — * gay as a chaffinch * is a 

 proverbial saying of the French ; but there is also a note of defiance 

 in the song, as in the crow of a cock. Chaffinches sing, as cocks 

 crow, against each other, and the music often ends in a combat. 

 It is not, as some imagine, that there is a spirit of emulation in 



