122 THE BIRDS OF SHERWOOD FOREST, 
cherry, and Siberian crab so entirely stripped of their 
buds year by year, that I cannot conceive such to be the 
case, or other branches of the same trees which were not 
so denuded would certainly show more traces of the 
ravages of the grub than they have done. I have 
watched them in a Siberian crabtree in my own garden, 
which stood about three yards from the window, and I 
feel convinced that they eat most of the buds they pick | 
off ; for the ground under this tree only showed one here 
and there which the birds had let fall. 
The bullfinch is a permanent resident in the district. 
In spring it is only met with in pairs; in autumn and 
Winter it associates in small parties of five or six in 
number, most probably the members of one brood, In 
winter it chiefly frequents the fields of stubble for seeds, 
and I have often met with it in hawthorn hedges feeding 
on the haws, to which it is very partial. 
Mr. Morris, in his British Birds, conceives that the 
name bullfinch is a “corruption of budfinch, the word 
bud being pronounced in the vulgate of the north of 
England as if spelled ‘bood ;’” but surely this is a 
forced conjecture ; is it not rather derived from the 
thick rounded form of its head and body, and its short 
neck? The word bullis used in many compound words to 
express largeness and roundness, as “ bullfaced,” having 
a large face; “ bulltrout,” a large kind of trout; “ bull- 
rush,” a large rush. This is the sense in which I have 
always been accustomed to consider the word, and have 
thought it very expressive, 
