64 BIRDS OF LANCASHIRE, 



migratory in winter, retiring to sheltered spots, and the 

 severe seasons of 1878, &c., thinned its numbers very 

 much everywhere. In 1875 Mr. John Plant says that 

 a pair bred in Peel Park, Salford, and altogether it is 

 very partial to the neighbourhood of houses and gar- 

 dens, nesting in the hedges surrounding the latter, and 

 levying heavy black-mail on newly-sown turnip, radish, 

 and other seeds. Mr. C. E. Pieade remarks that the 

 Greenfinch is the only bird he has noticed take the 

 seed of the Mezereon {Dajjline mezereum). Mr. John 

 Hardy alludes to its curious manner of singing during 

 flight, suspended, as he says, in somewhat the manner 

 of the Wood-Lark, but low down and not so long con- 

 tinued. It lays its six eggs from the middle of May 

 to the beginning of June. 



[" Scores of Greenfinches frequent Eanam Brewery 

 yard, in the centre of Blackburn, during hard weather, 

 to feed on the seed of the spent hops." — Pi. J. H.] 



GENUS COCCOTHEAUSTES. 

 HAWFINCH. 



COCCOTHRAUSTES VULGARIS, PallaS. 



A resident species, very local, and more generally 

 distributed in winter, but which of late years has ex- 

 tended its breeding-range northwards, and has been 

 found nesting in several localities where previously it 

 had not been observed in summer. Mr. John Weld 

 informs me that a pair were observed in the kitchen 

 garden of Leagram Hall in Jul}^ 1878, and seemed to have 

 bred somewhere near, two young birds, unable to fly, 

 being captured close by. The young were placed in a 



