HAWFINCH. 143 



in Ireland. Their strength of beak, as compared with 

 the size of the bird, is quite wonderful ; it results from 

 very strong and large muscles, which, extending on 

 either side from the eye to the occiput (hind head), 

 reach from the lower mandible to the top of the 

 cranium, where they meet ; they are separated from the 

 eyes by deep, bony ridges, to which they are firmly 

 attached. By contracting these muscles, which are thus 

 so firmly attached to the skull, it exerts such a force as 

 enables it to crack, with its hard and strong bill, the 

 thick stone of the hawthorn berry an operation requir- 

 ing a strong exertion of the human jaw. A few hours 

 after they were dead, I took a strong pair of scissors 

 and a knife, using them as levers, to force open their 

 bills, and found the muscle had so firmly contracted, 

 that to effect my purpose I had to use a wedge a 

 forcible proof, it will be allowed, of their strength. 

 Their bills alone, however, are formed as a pair of nut- 

 crackers, as the muscles of the neck, unlike those of the 

 Woodpecker's, are not strong. Not so with the wings, 

 which are furnished with such strong muscles that they 

 could almost vie with the pigeon in strength and rapidity 

 of flight." 



Like most showy birds, the Hawfinch is shy and 

 skulking, and usually difficult of approach. His flight 

 is undulating, and at times rapid, whilst his song is said 

 to consist of " four simple whistles in an ascending 

 scale, the last two long drawn out, with a ' click' on 

 the wing something like * bpt,' or the Greenfinch's * zh.' " 

 The song has been compared by others to that of the 

 Bullfinch. 



I hope that some of my readers will scour the haw- 



