JAPANESE HAWFINCH 205 



10 individuals in suitable seed-bearing deciduous trees or bushes. 

 Likewise it is not very plentiful in its breeding area in Hokkaido 

 where I met it in light deciduous woods and meadow-copses, also in 

 Sapporo and in the parks. Its behavior and voice are identical with 

 those of the European form." 



Yamashina (1933) says, "When migrating they move in small 

 flocks of about 10 birds, but in winter they are mostly found singly. 

 They fly in heavy, wavy lines, and are often found at the tops of high 

 trees, emitting a cry like titit." Kiyosu (1943) says essentially the 

 same thing, and adds, "It is most commonly seen on high trees, 

 preferring the higher branches, though it sometimes perches on 

 lower limbs and even feeds occasionally on the ground, where it hops 

 around. The flight is markedly wavy, and it utters its call note on 

 the wing." 



Bergman (1935) gives the following account of the hawfinch's 

 wintering habits in Kamchatka (translation from the German): 



* * * I observed hawfinches in Tschapina village on 28 March 1921 on my 

 winter journey from west Kamchatka to Petropavolowsk. Perhaps ten birds 

 were staying in the village and its environs. They were very shy and it took me 

 many hours to collect one. Yet they were numerous in Kirganik village. A few 

 kilometers beyond this village, where the natives fish for salmon in summer and 

 where there are many fish-drying racks, they appeared in great numbers. I saw 

 more than 100 hawfinches and was able to collect a few. In the vicinity of 

 Kirganik toward the large village of Milkowa where I stayed on 3 April, hawfinches 

 appeared everywhere and acted in the same manner as sparrows in a European 

 village. They flew around between the houses, perched on roofs and fences, and 

 played about in the snow between the huts. In the next village of Werschne- 

 Kamtschatsk there were still many hawfinches. On the road to this and the 

 next village there were still a few more to be seen, but it was clear that they 

 preferred to dwell in and near the villages. I also found hawfinches in several 

 villages in the middle and upper courses of the Kamchatka River in March and 

 April 1931. * * * During the following winter in December, January and Febru- 

 ary * * * J visited the villages where I had seen so many hawfinches the winter 

 before. They had completely disappeared. Also on my later trips over Kam- 

 chatka I saw not another single one. It seems therefor that the coming of the 

 hawfinch to Kamchatka was not regular * * *. 



Concerning the population of hawfinches resident in the Kurils he 

 says (1935), "I have found the hawfinch in the Kurils only on the 

 island of Yeterop. It stays on the island the entire year, and is rare 

 except in the spruce woods at the foot of Attosan volcano, where a 

 colony of these birds winters near the town Kamikotan. In Europe 

 the hawfinch is principally a bird of the deciduous forest. The 

 Kamchatkan wintering colony was always in an almost purely spruce 

 forest." 



