154 SKETCHES OF BIRD LIFE. 



Greenfinch becomes insectivorous in summer, and 

 destroys an immense number of noxious caterpillars, 

 whose presence, if undetected by this active little 

 bird, would easily account for the destruction of a 

 fruit crop. We at one time fancied that the bill of 

 the Greenfinch, so much shorter and stronger than 

 that of many other Finches, indicated a diet com- 

 posed exclusively of seeds, but since then, having 

 on more than one occasion, in summer, seen a 

 Greenfinch with its mouth full of small green 

 caterpillars, we are convinced of its utility in the 

 orchard. The young, although not treated ex- 

 clusively to that insect diet with which so many 

 small birds rear their broods, get something which 

 not only suits them quite as well, but also indirectly 

 benefits us, namely, small seeds which the old birds 

 macerate and make soft for them, as Wood Pigeons 

 do for their young ; and as wheat and other cereals 

 are not ripe when the callow brood requires food, 

 the 'parent birds fall back upon seeds of various 

 kinds, many of them common weeds, whose growth 

 is thus happily checked. 



The nest of the Greenfinch, as compared with 

 that of the Chaffinch, is not nearly so neat and 



