250 FIG-EATER—FINCH 
been noticed by British poets with varying propriety. Thus 
Chaucer’s association of its name with frost is as happy as true, 
while Scott was more than unlucky in his well-known reference to 
its “lowly nest” in the Highlands. 
Structurally very like the Fieldfare, but differing greatly in 
many other respects, is the bird known in North America as the 
“Rosin ”—its ruddy breast and familiar habits reminding the 
early British settlers in the New World of the household favourite 
of their former homes. ‘This bird, the Yurdus migratorius of 
Linneus, has a wide geographical range, extending from the 
Atlantic to the Pacific, and from Greenland to Guatemala, and, 
except at its extreme limits, is almost everywhere a very abundant 
species! As its scientific name imports, it is essentially a migrant, 
and gathers in flocks to pass the winter in the south, though a few 
remain in New England throughout the year. Yet its social 
instincts point rather in the direction of man than of its own kind, 
and it is not known to breed in companies, while it affects the 
homesteads, villages, and even the parks and gardens of the large 
cities, where its fine song, its attractive plumage, and its services as 
a destroyer of noxious insects, combine to make it justly popular. 
FIG-EATER, Ray’s rendering in 1678 of the Italian beccafico, 
a name commonly and almost indiscriminately given to any of the 
little birds which towards autumn resort to gardens, whether to eat 
figs or not, and are themselves caught by various devices, to be 
eaten as delicacies. According to the best recent authorities the 
true Beccafico is our Garden-WARBLER, Sylvia salicaria or hortensis ; 
but the bird which Buffon calls by the corresponding French term, 
Bec-figue, is the female Pied FLycaTcHER, Muscicapa or Ficedula 
atricapilla—one that may be safely said never to eat a fig. 
FINCH (German fink, Latin Fringilla), a name applied (but 
almost always in composition—as BULLFINCH, CHAFFINCH, GOLD- 
FINCH, HAWFINCH, and so forth) to a great many small birds of 
the Order Passeres, and now pretty generally accepted as that of a 
group or Family—the Fringillidx of most ornithologists. Yet it-is 
one the extent of which must be regarded as being uncertain. 
Many writers have included in it the Buntines (Emberizidz), 
though these seem to be quite distinct, and the grounds of their 
separation have been before assigned, as well as the LARKS 
(Alaudidx), the TANAGERS (Tanagridx), and the WEAVER-BIRDS 
(Ploceidx)—the mode in which these last three differ having in due 
time to be shewn in these pages. Others have separated from it 
the CROSSBILLS, under the title of Zoziidxv, but without due cause, 
1 Tt is recorded as having occurred a few times in Europe, and once even in 
England (Zool. 1877, p. 14); but whether in any case it has been a voluntary 
visitor is doubtful. 
