148 Bird-keeping. 



Goldfinches are sometimes found variously coloured, 

 with white and black heads, yellow breasts, white and 

 black bodies, etc. As they grow old, they will often 

 lose their bright colours in confinement, but will some- 

 times live sixteen or even twenty years in an aviary. 

 They are, however, subject to blindness in old age. 



The CHAFFINCH (Fringilla ccelebs) " Pie Finch." 

 The Chaffinch, called also the " Chink," " Pink," " Fink," 

 " Shellapple," and " Beech Finch," and in Scotland the 

 " Shilfa," is not so much prized in England as in France 

 and Germany. In Thuringia there is quite a mania 

 for these birds; and Bechstein enumerates a great 

 many varieties of the Chaffinch's song under such 

 names as these the " double trill of the Hartz," the 

 " Bridegroom's song," the " Sportsman's song," the 

 "Woodman's song," etc., which he says are derived 

 from the last syllable of the German sentence which 

 the bird is supposed to utter. Some birds are said to 

 have three or four distinct songs, but those which have 

 only one or two generally sing with greater perfection, 

 though perhaps they are less prized than those which 

 have a greater variety of song. It is asserted that the 

 Chaffinches frequenting one district sing quite diffe- 

 rently from those in another : that those in Thuringia, 

 in the Hartz Mountains, and in Austria, for instance, 

 have different songs. Bird-catchers in England say 

 the same of Chaffinches caught in Essex and Kent, 

 and declare that those found in Epping Forest sing a 



