BLACK-HEADED BIRDS. 



BULLFINCH. — Plate 20. Length, 6 inches. 

 Upper parts smoky-gray ; under parts red ; black 

 hood covering forehead, crown, and chin ; wings and 

 tail black, the former with a bold whitish cross- 

 bar ; parts about base of tail w^hite ; bill and legs 

 black, the former short and like a Parrot's. Female : 

 capped like the male, but upper parts brown, hind- 

 neck gray, and breast pale brown. Resident. 



Eggs. — 4-5, pale blue, speckled and streaked with 

 purplish-gray and dark brownish-purple; "VS >< "55 

 inch (plate 123). 



Nest. — Of fine root-fibres, lined with hair, placed 

 upon a platform of interwoven twigs, itself secured 

 in a well-grown whitethorn hedge, or placed well out 

 on a low branch of a yew-tree or other tree of full 

 leafage affording close cover. 



Distribution. — Very general in wooded districts 

 throughout the British Isles, but nowhere numerous. 



The Bullfinch is the only ruddy-breasted bird with 

 a black cap ; and even when, as in the female, the 

 ruddy breast gives place to pale brown, the conspicu- 

 ous cap, sharply defined in a line passing round the 

 crown and below the eye and chin, is distinctive. 

 Only the Stonechat combines a ruddy breast with a 

 black head, but in that case the whole head, thi'oat, 



