206 BIRDS OF SOMERSETSHIRE. 
as sroundsel, thistle, plantain, dock and chick-weed ; 
berries and the seeds of the fir-tree* and black- 
berriest may also be added to the list of food. 
In confinement the Bullfinch feeds upon canary 
and rape and hemp-seed: I believe too much of the 
latter is not good for it. It also shows an especial 
partiality for the seeds of all the weeds above- 
mentioned, and almost any other weed that can be 
given to it: if, however, a branch of an apple-tree or 
some other fruit-tree be given it, it very soon begins 
to work the buds. 
The nest is usually placed in a thick bush or in 
the branches of a fir-tree, not very far above the 
eround: it is formed of small twigs, and lined with 
fibrous roots. 
The adult male Bullfinch is a fine handsome bird. 
The beak is black ; the irides dark brown; all round 
the base of the beak, the head and higher part of the 
nape are velvet-black; back and scapulars bluish 
erey; rump white; tail-coverts black, glossed with 
blue; lesser wing-coverts greyish, but darker than 
the back; the greater wing-coverts black, glossed 
with blue and tipped with greyish white, making a 
conspicuous bar of that colour across the wing; all 
the quills are black, but some of them, especially the 
tertials, are glossed with blue; tail the same ; throat, 
* Meyer, vol. ii. p. 159. 
+ ‘ Zoologist’ for 1867 (Second Series, p. 685). 
