BULLFINCHES. 



197 



the spring, and afterwards congregate in small parties for the 

 remainder of the year. Their food varies with the season : in the 

 spring it consists principally of buds, and at this time the bull- 

 finches occasion much injury to the fruit and other trees ; while 

 during the summer and autumn they seem to prefer the seeds of 

 various plants. Their nest is carelessly put together and shallow, 

 formed of small twigs, lined with fibres of roots, and placed in the 

 lOrked branch of a tree. The eggs are from four to five in number. 

 The type of this sub-family is — 



Fig. 105.— The '&\}\.\.vw.cv.{Pyrrhula rubicilla). 



The Bullfinch {Pyrrhiila rjibiciUa), a bird equally remarkable for the 

 simple elegance of its plumage and the variety of its song; it is, moreover^ 

 but too well known from the devastation which it causes among our fruit trees. 

 During winter the food of the bullfinches consists exclusively of seeds of various 

 kinds, either picked up from the ground or gathered from herbs and shrubs. 

 In spring, unfortunately for the gardener, their taste alters, and nothing will 

 satisfy them but the blossoms of fruit trees, especially those which are culti- 

 vated. They attack, indeed, the'-buds of the sloe and hawthorn as well, but 

 of these, being valueless, no one takes any note. Keeping together in small 

 family parties, all uninvited, they pay most unwelcome visits to gooseberries, 

 plums, and cherries, and, if undisturbed, continue to haunt the same trees until 

 all hope of a crop is destroyed. Gooseberry bushes are left denuded of flower- 

 buds, which have been deliberately picked off and crushed between their strong 

 mandibles; while the leaf-buds, situated principally at the extremity of the 

 branches, are neglected. Plums and cherry trees are treated in like manner, 

 until the ground is strewed with the bud-scales and rudiments of flowers. 



