SONGS OF SPARROWS 131 



call-note of its young (above mentioned) ; and this 

 is an important feature, since the distinctive cries 

 of young birds are generally invariable, and of 

 universal occurrence in the respective species which 

 utter them. The chaffinch, however, has another 

 and a much more prominent note, which, although 

 not heard in the young (and in this it resembles the 

 tell tell of the house-sparrow), seems to be never 

 absent from the adult; this is the//# (ist ed. Yarrell, 

 Brit. Birds, vol. i. p. 462), twink (Knapp, Journal 

 of a Naturalist, p. 272), or fink, which I have 

 mentioned as an alarm and defiance, uttered by 

 male and female (ante, p. 43). Dr. A. G. Butler 

 suggests chinck as the most descriptive name for 

 the note. The cry is not peculiar to the chaffinch : 

 it is heard in the voice of the goldfinch and in the 

 song of the brown linnet. Bechstein has recorded 

 it as occurring in the song of the goldfinch. He 

 writes of the twite (Linota flavirostris, Linn.), " The 

 whole of the song somewhat resembling the first 

 exercises of the chaffinch" (Nat. Hist. Cage Birds, 

 p. 137). Macgillivray also writes that "its note is a 

 tweet very similar to that of the chaffinch " (British 

 Birds, vol. i. p. 337). Dr. A. G. Butler informs 

 me that the song of the brambling resembles that 

 of the chaffinch without the final " wheatear." There 



