76 BIRDS OF CHESHIRE. 
when its overpowering love for green peas attracts it 
to gardens, where it does considerable damage. Mr. R. 
Newstead states that a young bird taken at Ledsham 
subsisted almost entirely for eighteen months upon dry 
peas.! 
The Rev. C. Wolley-Dod gives the following interest- 
ing account of the Hawfinch as observed by him at 
Edge Hall, Malpas:—‘They have bred here for more 
than twenty years, ever since I came to live here. I 
suspect they breed in the high trees, but I have never 
looked for their nest. They destroy many peas in the 
pod, but the most remarkable evidence of their presence 
is beneath the yew-trees. When the berries get nearly 
ripe, about September, the ground beneath them be- 
comes covered with small twigs with one or two unripe 
berries on each. I used to think it was done by 
squirrels, but I have now become certain it is by Haw 
finches. If I get under the tree stealthily, I can 
generally hear their shrill wee chirp. There are two 
large yew-trees under which the twigs are strewn so 
thick that I have had more than a wheelbarrowful 
swept up at once, and in a fortnight they will be as 
thick again.’ ! 
GOLDFINCH. 
CARDUELIS ELEGANS, Stephens. 
Red Linnet, Jack Nicker, Nicker Nocker. » 
Unlike the last species, which is steadily gaining 
ground in Cheshire, the Goldfinch as a resident is 
rapidly becoming rarer, and has already been exter- 
minated in most districts. The reclamation of waste 
lands has curtailed its haunts, and persistent persecu- 
1 Dobie, op. cit. p. 296. 
