BULL. 



BULLFINCH. 



De Blainville quotes Defrance for thirty-seven fossil species. 

 [HELICID.E.] 



BULL. [BOVIDJ;.] 



BULLA. [BULLIDJ!.] 



BULLACE, the English name of a kind of Plum, the Pruntu insi- 

 titia of botanists. It is probably a mere variety of the Sloe. [PRUNUS.] 



BULL^EA. [BuLLiD-E.] 



BULLFINCH, or BULFINCH, Latin Pyrrhula, French Bouvreuil, 

 the name of a genus of Birds separated by Brisson from the Grosbeaks, 

 afterwards again incorporated with them, and since by Temminck and 

 others again arranged under Brisson's name Pyrrhula. 



The following is Temminck's generic character : 



Beak short, hard, conico-convex, thick, swollen (bombe 1 ) on the sides, 

 compressed at the point and towards the edge (arete) which advances 

 upon the forehead ; upper mandible always curved ; lower mandible 

 more or less so. Nostrils basal, lateral, rounded, most frequently 

 hidden by the plumage of the forehead. Feet with the tarsus shorter 

 than the middle toe ; the front toes entirely divided. Wings short, 

 the three first quills graduated (e'tage'es), the fourth longest. Tail 

 rather long, slightly rounded or squared. 



The place generally assigned by ornithologists to the Bullfinches, 

 between the Grosbeaks and the Crossbills, appears to be their proper 

 position. Their food consists principally of seeds and kernels ; and 

 though the smaller species confine themselves for the most part to 

 grain or seeds, which they open, rejecting the husk, some of the foreign 

 species, as Temminck observes, have the bill excessively large and 

 strong, and capable of fracturing the most ligneous seed-cases. Cold 

 and temperate climates, adds the author last quoted, appear to pro- 

 duce the greatest number of species. They are found in Europe and 

 America. The north of Asia appears to be equally their cradle, but 

 they have never yet been observed in Australia, and but few have 

 been noticed in Africa, while South America produces many. All the 

 known species are subject to a double moult. The males and females 

 differ, and can be easily distinguished in all stages of life. The young 

 of the year differ but little from the old birds, and only till their 

 autumnal moult. 



Of the European species the Common Bullfinch may be taken as an 

 example. It is Le Bouvreuil and Bouvreuil Commun of the French, 

 according to Belon ; Fringuello Marino, Ciufolotto, Suffuleno, and 

 Monachino, of the Italians ; Dom-Pape of the Danes and Norwegians ; 

 Dom-Herre of the ' Fauna Suecica ; ' Blutfinck, Rothbrustiger, and Der 

 Gimpel of the Germans ; De Goudvink of the Netherlander ; Loxia 

 Pyrrhula of Linnaeus, and Pyrrhula vvlgaris of Brisson. The provin- 

 cial names are Norsk-Pipe, Coalhood, Hoop, Tony Hoop, Alp, and 

 Hope. 



Male. Length about 6f inches, two inches and three-quarters being 

 taken up by the tail, which is rather forked, and of a lustrous black, 

 shot as it were with iron blue. Bill six lines in length, short, thick, 

 and black. Shanks eight lines high, and black. Irides of a chestnut 



Bullfinch (Pyrrhula rw/yam), male. 



colour. Crown of the head, circle round the bill, and upper part of 

 the throat, of the same hue with the tail Nape, back, and shoulders 

 deep gray, or rather bluish-gray. Cheeks, neck, breast, belly (to the 

 centre of it), and flanks, red. Rump and vent white. Greater wing- 

 covertH tipped and margined with a French or pinkish white, forming 

 a transverse bar across the wing. 



Female. Somewhat less than the male, and of a reddish-gray where 

 he is red; back brownish-gray; feet brownish-black. The colours 

 generally less bright than in the male. 



The young of the year are at first ash-colour, with wings and tail of 

 blackish-brown ; afterwards more like the female till the autumnal 

 moult ; but the young males may always be known by the greater 

 tinge of red about the breast. 



There are several varieties : 



1. Black. This variety may be produced artificially by feeding the 

 bird entirely on hemp-seed, in which case a change of diet will often 

 produce the true colours. Bechstein says it will arise from being kept 

 when young in a totally dark place ; and that females, either from 

 age or from the diet above mentioned, are most subject to it. 



2. White. This is merely an albino of an ashy or dusky white, or 

 cream-colour : the parts which are generally black are more shaded 

 than the rest. There is a specimen from Middlesex in the British 

 Museum. 



3. Speckled or Variegated. Spotted with black and white, or white 

 and ash-colour, besides the natural hues. Selby says that Captain 

 Mitford killed one, of which both the wings were white. 



4. Bechstein mentions varieties under the name of the Large Bull- 

 finch, about the size of a thrush, and the Middling or Common Bull- 

 finch. He treats the dwarf variety, which is said to be not so large as a 

 chaffinch, as a bird-catcher's story ; for he observes that this difference 

 of size occurs in all kinds of birds, and says he has had opportunities 

 every year of seeing hundreds both wild and tame, and adds, that he 

 has even found in the same nest some as small as redbreasts, and 

 others as large as a crossbill. 



The Bullfinch will produce hybrid young with the Canary. 



The native song of this common but pretty bird is very soft and 

 simple, but so low that it is almost inaudible. Its call is a plaintive 

 whistle, and when feeding it utters a low short twitter. It has how- 

 ever acquired great celebrity from the facility with which it learns to 

 whistle musical airs, and from its retentive memory, when well 

 educated and carefully attended to. " Those which are to be taught," 

 says Bechstein, " must be taken from the nest when the feathers of 

 the tail begin to grow, and must be fed only on rape-seed soaked in 

 water and mixed with white bread ; eggs would kill them or make 

 them blind. Their plumage is then of a dark ash-colour, with the 

 wings and tail blackish-brown. The males may be known at first by 

 their reddish breast ; so that when these only are wished to be reared 

 they may be chosen in the nest, for the females are not so beautiful, 

 nor so easily taught, though they answer the purpose of call-birds as 

 well as the male." Mrs. Charlotte Smith however says (' Nat. Hist of 

 Birds ' ) that she had a nest of bullfinches given her, of which only one 

 was reared : it was a hen, which she kept only because she had reared 

 it, but the bird hung in the same room with a very fine Virginian 

 nightingale, whose song she soon acquired, and went through the 

 same notes in a lower and softer tone. " Although the young," con- 

 tinues Bechstein, ' do not warble before they can feed themselves, one 

 need not wait for this to begin their instruction, for it will succeed 

 better, if one may say so, when infused with their food ; since experi- 

 ence proves that they learn those airs more quickly and remember 

 them better which they have been taught just after eating. It has 

 been observed several times that these birds, like the parrots, are 

 never more attentive than during digestion. Nine months of regular 

 and continued instruction are necessary before the bird acquires what 

 amateurs call firmness ; for if one ceases before this time, they murder 

 the air by suppressing or displacing the different parts, and they often 

 forget it entirely at their first moulting. In general it is a good thing 

 to separate them from the other birds, even after they are perfect, 

 because, owing to their great quickness in learning, they would spoil 

 the air entirely by introducing wrong passages ; they must be helped 

 to continue the song when they stop, and the lesson must always be 

 repeated whilst they are moulting, otherwise they will become mere 

 chatterers, which would be doubly vexatious after having had much 

 trouble in teaching them." 



A single air with a short prelude is generally as much as the bird 

 can learn and remember ; but Bechstein, who asserts this, allows that 

 there are some of them which can whistle distinctly three different 

 airs, without spoiling or confusing them in the least. In truth, as the 

 same author observes, there are different degrees of capacity among 

 the bullfinches as well as in other animals. One young bullfinch 

 learns with ease and quickness, another with difficulty and slowly ; 

 the former will repeat without hesitation several parts of a song ; the 

 latter will hardly be able to whistle one after nine months' uninter- 

 rupted teaching. Those birds which learn with most difficulty are 

 said to remember the songs, when once learnt, better and longer, and 

 rarely forget them even when moulting. To these attractive qualities 

 of the Bullfinch must be added its obedience and capability of strong 

 attachment, which it shows by a variety of little endearing actions ; 

 and it has been known even to repeat words with an accent and tone 

 indicative of sensibility, if, as Bechstein observes, one could believe that 

 it understood them. Of its attachment the following are instances : 

 Buffon asserts that tame bullfinches have been known to escape from 

 the aviary, and live at liberty in the woods for a whole year, and then 

 to recollect the beloved voice of the person who had reared them, 

 returning never more to leave her. Others, when forced to leave 



