) PERCHING BIRDS. 117 
months. Their habits were very shy, and they confined 
themselves to the clumps of evergreens, principally holly 
and box, where they appeared most frequently employed 
on the ground underneath the shrubs. One of them, a 
female, was seen on the 19th of March, when they ap- 
pear to have left. During the same season another pair 
were seen at Cuckney, but both were unfortunately 
shot. 
A hawfinch in immature plumage was caught in 
Thoresby Park in July, 1864; it had one of its wings 
hurt, which prevented it from flying, and consequently 
permitted a workman to take it up in his hand. He 
carried it to his workshop in the woodyard, and there 
offered it some green peas, which, to his surprise, it ate 
greedily, taking them in the most fearless manner from 
his fingers. In August following, when I saw it, its 
wing had healed, and it took well to confinement, but 
was very shy when strangers approached, fluttering to 
the further side of its cage, though it manifested no alarm 
at its captor, with whom it was quite familiar, and 
would take food from his hand. 
The Goldfinch (£. carduelis) is at once one of the 
most beautiful, as it is one of our commonest, song 
birds. With us it is especially abundant on the forest, 
where, on the open parts, numerous plants of the 
common thistle grow, either singly or in patches; here 
I have often watched small parties of these pretty birds 
clinging to the prickly heads and nfling them of their 
downy seeds, incessantly uttering all the time their 
musical call notes, as if they could not contain their en- 
joyment. In our gardens it feeds on the silky seeds of 
the groundsel: it delights, too, to build its nest in such 
places; and a small clump of nut and plum trees in my 
