FRINGILLID. 205 
the Common Linnet during its assumption of its 
spring attire. 
The eggs are of a “pale bluish green ground 
colour, spotted with orange-brown, principally 
towards the larger end.* 
Buuurincy, Pyrrhula vulgaris. This very hand- 
some, but it must be admitted somewhat mischievous, 
bird, though resident with us, is not very numerous, 
partially perhaps owing to its persecution by the 
gardeners, and partially to the more systematic 
attacks of the bird-catchers, the Bullfinch being 
much prized as a cage-bird. 
As the food of this species consists, in a great 
measure, of buds, it is consequently very destructive 
both in the garden and in the orchard, where it eagerly 
devours the buds of the gooseberry, plum, cherry, 
apple, and, in fact, almost any fruit-bearing tree, not 
by any means limiting itself, as has often been 
suggested in its defence, to diseased buds, or those 
that have some grub or insect in them, but eating 
up the most healthy and likely to grow. Where the 
Bullfinches are not numerous perhaps the mischief 
thus done is not great—only a little necessary 
thinning. The buds of the larch and birch trees, as 
well as those of the white and black thorns, also fall 
a prey to this bird; on the other hand, it consumes 
a great quantity of the seeds of various weeds, such 
* Yarrell, vol. i, pp, 542, 548, 
