HAWFINCH. 101 



habits have undergone little if any change. It generally 

 perches on the highest branch of a tree, or upon a dead or 

 naked bough, whence it keeps so good a look-out that it is 

 very difficult of approach, and even if seen it may well pass 

 for some common species of Finch if the observer be not 

 pretty acute. 



The eggs, in number from four to six, are commonly of a 

 pale olive-green, spotted with black, and irregularly marked 

 with bold streaks and dashes, or vermiform lines of dark 

 olive. Other specimens have a very decided blue tinge, and 

 occasionally the markings are almost or even entirely want- 

 ing. Others have the ground-colour reddish as Lord Clifton 

 informs the Editor. They measure from 1'08 to '9 by 

 from '79 to -62 in. 



It is in what are known as the home-counties, Middlesex, 

 Essex, Hertford, Buckingham, Berks, Surrey and Kent that 

 the Hawfinch is most plentiful, and its abundance in the last 

 is shewn by the fact that in the present year (1876) Lord 

 Clifton, as he has informed the Editor, knew of more than 

 fifty nests at Cobham. Mr. Cecil Smith has reason to 

 believe that it has bred in Somerset, and to the eastward of 

 long. 2" W. it has been ascertained to breed in every county 

 south of York, save Stafford, Leicester and Lincoln — in all 

 which, however, the discovery of its nest is probably only a 

 matter of time. In winter it is recorded as having occurred 

 in every English county except Westmoreland, and sometimes 

 in great numbers, for it would seem that it occasionally 

 migrates to this country in considerable flocks. Evidence of 

 its appearance in Wales is not forthcoming, but it is no un- 

 usual winter-visitant to Ireland, having been obtained at 

 various places from Donegal round the eastern side of that 

 island to Kerry, while it may possibly have bred there, since 

 Mr. Watters says that an egg sent to him from Meath was 

 similar to those of this species obtained from the continent. 

 The same observer notices the tameness of examples seen 

 by him in the Phoenix Park, near Dublin, where it has been 

 more often observed than elsewhere in Ireland — in singular 

 contradistinction to its well known peculiarity in other 



