BRAMBLING. 85 



districts where the beech is a common tree their numbers in 

 any year depend upon whether there is a plentiful supply oi' 

 mast or not. Bramblings usually arrive in this county 

 in October^ but in this (northern) division, where the beech only 

 exists as a planted tree, although an occasional bird may 

 be seen in that month, the large flocks do not appear imtil 

 about Christmas, when, the beech-mast being exhausted, they 

 range widely over the country in search of food. Then they 

 appear on the stubbles and ploughings, consorting when few 

 in number sometimes with Chaffinches and other birds, biit 

 when in large flocks generally keeping by themselves. When 

 a flock is approached, and the birds flit on in front of the 

 observer, they bear a striking resemblance to Bullfinches, the 

 white patch on the lower back being very noticeable in flight. 

 They remain Avitli us often until the beginning of March, and 

 I once saw a fine male on a newly-drilled field at Great 

 Bourton on the i6th of that month, a remarkably warm day, 

 in 1884. Bramblings are very hardy birds, and some 

 specimens which I examined during the severe frost of 

 January, 1881, when many birds were dying of cold and 

 starvation, were quite fat. Very large flocks sometimes visit 

 us. About the end of February, 1886, forty were taken one 

 night in bat-fowling or clap-nets at Wroxton, and of one 

 hundred and seventy small birds, killed at three discharges, 

 near Balscott, in the early part of March that year, all but a 

 few were of this species. It is worthy of note that nine-tenths 

 of the Bramblings shot here are males, and a very large 

 percentage of them are adult birds. In its ordinary plumage 

 the throat of the male Brambling is of the same orange 

 fulvous colour as the breast, but two peculiar varieties, or 

 phases, of plumage have been noticed by ornithologists: in 

 one the throat is more or less black, and in the other white. 

 I possess Oxfordshire specimens exhibiting both these phases, 

 which were procured in March, 1886, and January, 1888. 



