HAWFINCH. 65 



cage, and ate with good appetite the peas which were 

 given them, and after release, the family together com- 

 mitted serious ravages among the growing pods. No 

 one in the neighbourhood had previously seen the 

 species, but it was again noticed in April 1879, July 

 1880, and April 1881. In the summer of 1880 Mr. W. 

 Fitzherbert Brockholes tells me a young bird was picked 

 up dead near Claughton, and Mr. John Watson reports 

 that, in the same year, a nest with three eggs (the 

 female being caught) was taken near Coniston, it other- 

 wise being only known as a rare winter visitor there. 

 Mr. W. Gillett saw six birds in the breeding-season of 

 1881 near Chorley, and a young male is still in existence 

 which was rescued from a nest of young with which 

 some children were playing near Whalley in that year. 

 The owner of this specimen said that a year or two be- 

 fore, he had seen a lot of young which, from their size, 

 must have been bred in the neighbouring woods, l)y the 

 side of the Calder. Mr. E. Standen says that in the 

 autumn of 1882 about a dozen birds, two of which 

 (males) he saw, out of four shot, appeared in a garden 

 near Goosnargh, and were feeding on old plum-stones ; 

 and on the 2nd or 3rd of the previous May a male, in 

 full breeding plumage and good condition, was sent to Mr. 

 John Hardy, from Worden Hall, near Preston. This last 

 was picked up, scarcely alive, after a severe storm, and 

 soon died. Mr. Hardy says the Hawfinch is not a very 

 infrequent visitor near Manchester, it having been 

 several times shot both in summer and winter, and that in 

 two cases he has known of its nesting in the neighbour- 

 hood. In the spring of 1883 Mr. J. J. Hornby found it 

 breeding at Knowsley, and it again appeared in most of 

 the localities before mentioned, whilst during the winter, 

 on more than one estate, it was observed in considerable 



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