118 FRINGILLID^E. 



year.* For some centuries there have been persons who have 

 amused themselves with teaching it a variety of tricks, the 

 commonest being that of drawing up water for its own use 

 in a toy bucketf , or of raising the lid of the box which con- 

 tains its food, while still greater ingenuity has been v/asted 

 in teaching it feats of a character far more unnatural |, and 

 therefore to a naturalist eminently distasteful. All these 

 qualities, combined with the ease with which it can be 

 caught, render the Goldfinch one of the most important 

 subjects of the bird- dealer's traffic, and the number netted 

 — chiefly in the southern counties — in autumn and spring- 

 is enormous. Mr. Hussey in 1860 (Zool. p. 7144) put the 

 average annual caj^tures of this species near Worthing at 

 about 1154 dozens — nearly all being cock-birds — and it would 

 seem that a still larger number used to be yearly taken 

 within ten miles of Brighton, where, according to Mr. 

 Svvaysland (a witness before the Committee of the House of 

 Commons on Bird-Protection), a boy could catch forty dozens 



* Gesner, not on his own authority however, tells of one which was ticenty- 

 Ihree years old ! 



t From this fact the bird is fancifully known in some parts of England as 

 the " Draw- water" ; but its commonest local name perhaps is " King Harry " or 

 " Redcap," while in some of the Midland counties it is termed " Proud Tailor' 

 In Sir T. Browne's time it seems to have been known as a " Fool's coat." 



+ Syme, writing in 1823, states (Treat. Br. Song-Birds, p. 182) that a few 

 years before a certain Sieur Roman exhibited a number of trained Finches (Grold- 

 finches. Linnets and Canaries) which enacted some wonderful parts : — One seemed 

 dead, and was held up by the tail or claw, without exhibiting any sign of life ; a 

 second stood on its head with its claws in the air ; a third imitated a Dutch milk- 

 maid going to market with pails on its shoulders ; a fourth mimicked a Venetian 

 girl looking out of a window ; a fifth appeared as a soldier, and mounted guard 

 as a sentinel ; a sixth acted as a cannoneer, and, with cap on head, firelock on 

 shoulder and match in claw, discharged a small cannon. The same bird also 

 feigned to have been wounded, and was wheeled in a barrow, to convey it, as it 

 were, to the hospital ; after which it flew away before the company. A seventh 

 turned a kind of windmill ; and the last stood in the midst of some fireworks 

 which were discharged all round it, without exhibiting the least symptom of fear. 

 In our own time other "performing" birds have brought their masters much 

 gain and passing credit from a foolish public. The only thing which can reconcile 

 the naturalist to witnessing such displays, violating the laws of nature as they do 

 equally with that melancholy exhibition ironically called the " Ilaj^py Family," 

 is the apparently well-founded belief in the docility of the Goldfinch being so 

 great that little if any cruelty is required to "perfect'' its education. 



