8 
sparrows to one chaffinch, in the country lanes the chaffinch is often 
commoner. Its food is generally grain, seeds, and the tender 
leaves of young plants, but in the spring insects contribute to its 
dietary, and some years ago I stood on a little footbridge over the 
river Tweed, near Dryburgh, and watched the Chaffinches catching 
insects in the air, like so many Flycatchers. The female bird is 
not nearly so handsome as the male, the brilliant colour being all 
toned down, and the red breast almost absent. I am not very 
familiar with nests, but that of the Chaffinch is said to be most 
perfect in finish and general workmanship, taking the female bird 
sometimes three weeks to build. 
Who does not love the Robin, Erithacus rubecula; the first 
favourite of English birds? What tales are told of his tameness 
and pleasing little ways in our gardens, on our window sills, and 
even in our rooms if tempted by a few crumbs and an open window. 
John Ruskin, in ‘‘ Love’s Meinie,” the first of a series of Lectures 
on Greek and English Birds, given before the University of Oxford, 
after seventeen pages of severe satire on the aristocracy for shoot- 
ing birds and especially pigeons, on the masters of science for their 
arrogance and materialism, and methods of nomenclature, and on 
some articles for their love of minuteness and muscularity, or as 
he puts it, ‘‘the lancet and the microscope in the’ hands of fools 
supposed to be substitutes for imagination in the souls of wise men ” 
at length says ‘‘ And yet 1am going to invite you to-day to examine, 
down to almost microscopic detail, the aspect of a small bird, and 
to invite you to do this, as a most expedient and sure step in your 
study of the greatest art. But the difference in our motive of ex- 
amination will entirely alter the result. To paint birds that we 
may show how minutely we can paint, is among the most con- 
temptible occupation of art. To paint them, that we may show 
how beautiful they are, is not indeed one of its highest, but quite 
one of its pleasantest and most useful; it is a skill within the 
reach of every student of average capacity, and which, so far as 
acquired, will assuredly both make their hearts kinder, and their 
lives happier. Without further preamble, I will ask you to look 
to-day, more carefully than usual, at your well-known favourite, 
and to think about him with some precision.’’ Further on he 
mentions, ‘‘ the indescribable silky brown, the ground work of all 
other colour in so many small birds, which is indistinct among 
green leaves, and absolutely identifies itself with dead ones, or with 
mossy stems. I think I show it you more accurately in the robln’s 
back than I couldin any other bird; its mode of transition into 
more brilliant colour is, in him, elementarily simple.” Again, ‘‘ he 
is very notable in the exquisite silence and precision of his move- 
ments, as opposed to birds who either creak in flying, or waddle in 
walking. ‘‘ Always quiet” says Gould, ‘‘for the silkiness of his 
