FOR CAGES AND A VI ARIES, 73 



It must be admitted, however, that the female Greenfinch 

 is a dingy-looking little grey thing with a suspicion 

 of green and yellow here and there, while the young 

 are curiously speckled, so that some inexperienced 

 persons have imagined them to be hybrids betw^een 

 the ordinary brown Linnet and the Greenfinch, and 

 the fable that the two species interbreed promiscuously 

 in a state of freedom passes current for truth in certain 

 quarters, where one might naturally have looked for more 

 enlightenment. 



The Greenfinch. 



The call-note of this species is singularly loud and 

 clear, and reminds the auditor of that of the Canary; the 

 eggs of the two species are also very much alike, and 

 the notion suggested itself to a well-known ornithologist, 

 a few years ago, that there might be some "common 

 ancestor" connection between them: so the two birds were 

 paired together, and produced a series of mules, for mules 

 the young ones all were and nothing more, and the evolu- 

 tionary theory, at least as far as the Greenfinch and the 

 Canary were concerned, broke down. 



The food of the Greenfinch consists of seeds and buds, 

 and it does a good deal of mischief in gardens and 



