PRELIMINARY CLASSIFIED NOTES 67 



outside its breeding range may be taken as evidence of a certain amount of 

 migratory movement apart from range extension, but exact information is 

 lacking. [A. L. T.] 



4. Nest and Eggs. Nesting place : usually in orchards, isolated hawthorns, 

 or forest trees, but occasionally in hedges. Nest : characteristic a layer of twigs, 

 with a shallow cup of bents, fibre, roots, lichens, lined with rootlets, hah*, dry grass, 

 fibre. (PI. in.) Whether it is built by both sexes or one has not been recorded. 

 The eggs, usually 4-5, sometimes 6, in number, are handsome and very distinctive. 

 They are boldly streaked and spotted with very dark oh' ve-brown and faint markings 

 of purple-grey on a bluish or greyish green ground. In some varieties this is slate- 

 grey and in others warm buff with brown markings. (PL B.) Average size of 

 100 eggs -94 x -68 in. [23'8 x 17'2 mm.]. (PI. B.) Laying begins at the end of 

 April or in May. Incubation is performed chiefly by the female (Naumann). 

 Period of incubation 14 days. One brood. [F. c. B. J. F. B. K.] 



5. Food. Chiefly the kernels of the hawthorn, cherry, plum, yew ; peas, 

 hornbeam seeds. The young are fed with insects (Naumann). Both sexes share 

 in this duty (Naumann ; Bailly, Ornith. de la Savoie ; E. L. Turner). [F. B. K.] 



6. Song Period. February to June (Naumann). 



CHAFFINCH [Fringitta codebs, Linnaeus. Called after its familiar note the 

 spink, twink, pink. Other names : sheely, shilfa, shelly, shivvy, skelly, 

 scobbie, scoppie, shell-apple, white-wing, white-linnet, pie-finch, fleck-linnet, 

 copper-finch, buck-finch, bull-spink, beech-finch, boldie, snabby, charbob, 

 weetie, wintie. French, pinson ; German, Buchfink ; Italian, fringudlo]. 



1. Description. Recognised by the conspicuous broad upper and narrower 

 lower white bars on the wing-coverts, the yellowish green rump, slate blue crown 

 and nape, light chocolate-coloured back, and red (pale burnt-sienna) throat and 

 breast. After the autumn moult the plumage is less vivid. Length 6 in. [152 mm.]. 

 The hen differs in having the crown and nape greyish brown, the back olive-brown, 

 and the throat and breast whitish brown with a tinge of sienna. (PL 14.) The 

 young are like the hen, but have conspicuous yellow-green margins to the outer 

 webs of the secondaries, [w. p. p.] 



2. Distribution. Palsearctic : the typical form breeding throughout most 

 of Europe and much of Western Asia, up to the Arctic Circle, and beyond this, in 

 Scandinavia, nearly to the North Cape. A number of local races are, however, 

 resident in the various North- West African states, in Madeira, in the Canaries, and 



