6 7 



VIII. 



FINCHES, STARLINGS AND CROWS. 



The spruce, handsome chaffinch (in Che- 

 shire " pied finch ") is with us all the year 

 round, and his song here, as I suppose every- 

 where, is one of the most familiar of the 

 pleasant voices of spring. 



One or more chaffinches generally feed 

 with the fowls (and sometimes they are quite 

 extraordinarily tame, hens more so, perhaps, 

 than cocks), but they do not often attempt to 

 get food from the stand. Though they 

 sometimes do, for instance in the winter of 

 1910-11, there was one that came regularly. 



The gait of the chaffinch strikes one as 

 peculiar, it is as a fact a hopping movement, 

 but it gives the impression of a run. 



I have frequently noticed something like 

 rivalry or competition in singing between a 

 chaffinch and another bird, such as a tree- 

 pipit or a lesser whitethroat, or a willow-wren. 



One night as I was going the round of the 

 house the last thing, about 12 o'clock, I heard 

 a great fluttering and found that a light had 

 been left on a table close to an unshuttered 

 window, and outside beating against the glass 

 was a handsome cock chaffinch. 



In February, 1911, a brambling was 

 brought to me for identification. It had been 

 shot at the other side of the village, one of a 



