70 FRTNGILLID.E. 



The Chaffinch had long been known on the continent as a 

 bird-of-passage, but Linnaeus, informed by Leche, first pub- 

 lished the interesting information that in Sweden the hens 

 left the country in winter while the cocks did not, and hence 

 applied the trivial name of ccelehs, or bachelor, to the species 

 in reference to these deserted males. The evidence of later 

 Swedish authorities does not altogether confirm this observa- 

 tion. Prof. Nilsson, in 1817, said that but few of the species 

 wintered in Sweden at all, but that these few were not males 

 only. In 1835 he stated that the cocks both departed and 

 returned before the hens, while, in 1858, he declared be- 

 sides that the former have a winter-dress like that of the 

 hens, but that each sex migrates separately. Sundevall 

 agrees to the last assertion, denying, however, and as regards 

 the adults unquestionably with truth, that the sexes are alike 

 at any season. It is probable that most of these discrepan- 

 cies are the result of observations made in different parts of 

 the country, but other instances are known of the temporary 

 separation of the sexes among birds. The testimony of the 

 best observers in the British Islands is at variance on this 

 point in the habits of the Chaffinch, and the diversity must 

 be attributed to difference of situation. More than a century 

 ago White of Selborne wrote that for many years he had 

 remarked the vast flocks of hen Chaffinches, with scarcely a 

 cock among them, that appeared in the fields towards Christ- 

 mas, and naturally correlated this fact with Linnaeus's state- 

 ment. Selby, more than fifty years since, observed that in 

 Northumberland and the south of Scotland few females were 

 seen between November and the return of spring, and those 

 only in distinct societies, while immense flocks of males 

 remained during the winter. But, these accounts being 

 doubtless true as regards the localities to which they refer, 

 we have on the other hand men just as accurate — Montagu 

 in Devonshire and Knapp in Gloucestershire, for instance, 

 to say nothing of other more recent and not less excellent 

 observers — denying that any such separation is apparent in 

 their respective neighbourhoods. We certainly receive, in 

 autumn or early winter, most likely from Norway and Sweden, 



