THE NATURAL HISTORY 



[LETT. 



A shepherd saw, as he thought, some white larks on a down 

 above my house this winter: were not these the Emberiza 

 nivalis, the snow-flake of the Brit. Zool. ? No doubt they were. 



A few years ago I saw a cock bullfinch in a cage, which had 

 been caught in the fields after it was come to its full colours. 



THE BULLFINCH. 



In about a year it began to look dingy ; and blackening ever)- 

 succeeding year, it became coal-black at the end of four. Its 

 chief food was hempseed. Such influence has food on the colour 

 of animals ! The pied and mottled colours of domesticated 



vast flights, to their nest trees, where, after flying round with much noise 

 and clamour, till they are all assembled together, they take up their abode 

 for the night. MARKWICK. 



