THE BULLFINCH. 225 



equally conspicuous with the white upper tail-coverts. 

 They sometimes continue advancing in this way by easy 

 stages for several hundred yards, until they either reach 

 a hedge running in a cross direction, which they follow, 

 or else double back on their pursuer on the opposite side 

 of the hedge. These tactics are pursued so invariably 

 as to be quite enough to distinguish the bird, even if 

 the characteristic call-note be suppressed. The natural 

 song of the Bullfinch is nothing more than the plaintive 

 whistle described above, uttered at distant intervals, some- 

 times slightly prolonged, or, very rarely, doubled. In 

 captivity the Bullfinch is greatly prized for the facility 

 with which it learns to sing little melodies, and even to 

 repeat articulate words, but it is rarely able to commit 

 to memory more than a single tune or sentence. Many 

 pleasing anecdotes are told of the docility and affec- 

 tion of these birds. They soon grow accustomed to 

 captivity, and if confined with birds of the same species 

 seem indifferent to the recovery of their liberty. The 

 Bullfinch, as if conscious of the ill-will borne against it by 

 gardeners on account of its depredations, generally keeps 

 out of their reach in the breeding season, and builds its 

 nest in some secluded copse or thick hedge, employing as 

 materials small twigs and dry grass, with a lining of fibrous 

 roots. It usually lays five eggs. Less frequently, it places 

 its nest in a shrubbery or garden hedge. 



PIKE GEOSBEAK. 



PYRRHULA ENUCLEATOR. 



Head and upper parts of the neck reddish orange, streaked on the back with 

 dusky ; wings and" tail "black, the former with two white bars, the primaries 

 and tail-feathers edged with orange, the secondaries with white ; under parts 

 orange-yellow. Length seven and a quarter inches. Eggs white. 



A LARGE and handsome bird, inhabiting the Arctic Regions 

 during the summer months, and in winter descending a 



Q 



