Thk Hawfinch 47 



rather pleasing : — The adult male has the head of a ciunamon-brown colour, a line 

 round the base of the bill, the lores, chin, and throat, black ; the nape is smoky 

 gre}- ; the back and scapulars dull chestnut, somewhat paler on the rump, and 

 becoming rather j-ellower on the upper tail-coverts ; wings bluish-black, the median 

 coverts white ; the quills with a white patch near the middle of their inner webs, 

 gradually increasing on the inner feathers, and tipped with blue ; the tail-coverts 

 cinnamon-brown, much elongated ; tail feathers black, white at the extremit}' of 

 the inner webs : under surface of body pale Dove-brown, fading to white on the 

 under tail-coverts ; beak in summer bluish-grey, darker at the tip ; in winter 

 brownish ilesh-coloured ; feet flesh-coloured ; iris whitish. The female is duller 

 in colour, with the white markings less pure. The 3'Oung are without black on 

 the throat, or grey on the nape ; the head is also yellower, and the under surface 

 of the body whiter ; the mantle is mottled, and the breast and flanks are barred 

 with dark brown. 



The Hawfinch is resident with us ; but it is probable that at least some of 

 the young leave our shores at the approach of winter, their places being taken by 

 immigrants from the north : in the autumn they not infrequently fly into the 

 nets of the birdcatchers, and are disposed of at ver}? moderate prices. During the 

 summer months the Hawfinch is an exceedingly shy bird, and is far more frequently 

 heard than seen ; its call-note, consisting of a whistle four times repeated, and 

 drawn out at the finish, being familiar to most frequenters of its haunts ; the 

 harsh Greenfinch-like sound, sometimes mistaken for its call-note, is probably its 

 cr}' of defiance. The song is a ver}' inferior performance of short duration, some- 

 what like that of an inferior Greenfinch. 



The Hawfinch frequents well-wooded localities, such as forest-clearings, small 

 woods, plantations, shrubberies, heavily timbered parks, where patches of 3'ews or 

 hawthorn and bramble are left to break the monotony of the landscape, and old 

 orchards ; in such places it builds, varying the site of the nest according to the 

 haunt which it frequents ; thus in a wood or clearing it usuall}^ makes its home 

 in some old hawthorn, tangled with blackberry-vines, or in a holl}', or on the 

 branch of a fir, oak, or beech-tree, some fifteen to thirty feet from the ground ; 

 but in an orchard, an old lichen-covered apple or pear-tree is chosen. 



The nest of this bird most nearly resembles that of a Biillfinch, being very 

 shallow, and alwa3-s formed in a foundation of twigs ; one which I found in 

 course of formation, had the whole of this external structure formed of strongly 

 spined interlaced twigs of hawthorn, from which all the leaves had been stripped, 

 and presented a most formidable appearance ; sometimes, however, the twigs are 

 intermixed with coarse roots and dead plants, and ornamented with lichens ; the 



