IN PAIRING TIME 147 



with its own sweetness, is overcome by momentary 

 silence. Then the bird, recovering command, 

 swerves on a descending arc, and with freer, incisive 

 notes, comes to rest upon the ground. I have seen 

 this little artist so abandon himself to his art as to 

 strike the water in the middle of the river in his 

 unchecked descent, escaping only by very inartistic 

 flutterings to the bank where his mate awaited him, 

 a wetter and, it is to be hoped, a wiser bird. 



The Greenfinch is a bird one would not readily 

 credit with originality even when stimulated by 

 rivalry in love. Its long-drawn note first sounds in 

 our neighbourhood about the second week of March, 

 but no considerable number of the birds appears 

 until early April. At that time the males gather on 

 the hedgetops in the neighbourhood of the as yet not 

 very numerous females, constantly twittering, and at 

 times evincing a mildly bellicose spirit by darting at 

 and displacing some nearer rival. 



The Greenfinch has, nevertheless, a quite original 

 performance when he flies out to circle about and 

 display his qualities before the female seated on the 

 hedgetop. The mode of flight used then and at no 

 other time is distinguished by a peculiar rolling 

 motion, and it will cost the observer some pains to 

 discover how it is set up. It is not that kind of 

 rolling motion that is caused as in the case of the 

 Lapwing by the bird tilting itself bodily to right and 

 left alternately, so as to display now the upper, now 

 the under parts to an observer stationed on one side. 

 The Greenfinch flies with wings extended horizontally, 

 and the rolling movement resembles to some extent 

 that of a swimmer swimming "overhand," employing 



